Let's Begin
by DistractibleDingo
Summary: A series of loosely connected stories. Moana is undoubtedly a leader, but there's a difference between being a good wayfinding teacher and being a village chief. AO3 cross-post. [Part 5 of the fanfic series, Where You Are.]
1. The Visit

_Alternatively, Four Times Moana Made Some Good Calls and One Time She Didn't._

A cross-posting of a fic I put up on AO3 in July 2017.

 **Part 5 of the fanfic series, _Where You Are_.**

* * *

 **Notes:**

I'm not sure what happened, this entire thing was supposed to be about 3000 words and the very first story ended up surpassing that completely, so here are some little glimpses in the eight years between founding a new colony and the next fanfic in the series? The first is I guess fluff in two parts. Actually helpful proper notes: no, these aren't the Cook Islands but I couldn't resist the pun. Also, any resemblance to the real-life Fa'anui is coincidence, I just wanted a good generic name for a harbour town. If anything I'm probably taking more inspiration than I should from my hometown of Port Moresby.

* * *

Moana doesn't need his approval.

If anything he probably needs hers, not that he'd ever admit it.

But she's biting her lip and trying not to play with her hair as they pass through the beginnings of her new settlement, and she's all determined not to look at him but her eyes occasionally dart to his direction anyway, and if that's not the cutest thing he's ever seen her do it's probably close.

She's just about to ask, "Well?", as they pass by the framework of a pretty magnificent grand _fale_ , when he lets out a low whistle, and she almost collapses in joy and relief.

"Gotta say, Chosen One," he says, stepping back to let a small group of her family's attendants pass by with food and water for the builders, "you really got something here."

And for a second it's like they're back on her outdated little canoe and he's praising her for finally perfecting a knot or tracking the right constellation.

"You really think so?" Moana says, eyes shining and smirk coming out as an earnest beam, before she collects herself, straightening her headdress. "I mean, yeah, of course you think so. Because it's great. Our settlement is great."

He raises an eyebrow. "Convincing, Mo."

"Oh, shush."

Maui nudges her with his elbow, his substitute for ruffling her hair whenever they were in public, and the space between them fills with her embarrassed laughter before she shoves him back, the Mini Maui tattoo on her shoulder inches away from ramming into his coconut tattoo. Pua adds in a playful little headbutt for good measure.

Maui laughs. He missed her. He missed them all. Why does he ever leave.

He clears his throat, his attention back on the building in progress as he traipses towards the main posts already up. "Hey, nice! Breadfruit wood?"

She crosses her arms, head held high. "Yep! Brought a few plants from Motunui, but, y'know, funniest thing!" she says, and raises her own eyebrow nice and high. "When we first got here, there was a grove of mature breadfruit trees near the shore, isn't that weird? Breadfruit trees at the perfect location, and lots of them the perfect age to build and make boats with?"

Maui leans on his hook, the most convincing frown on his face. "Hmm. That _is_ weird."

She smirks, and leans against the post. "Isn't it?" she says. "Y'know, since breadfruit needs humans to spread. We thought we came across an old village!"

"No."

"Yeah!" she says. "But, also funny thing, there were no signs anyone ever lived here! I mean, what are the odds we'd find this amazing _uninhabited_ island filled with _wild_ breadfruit when all the other islands on the way here were former dead lands? Isn't that weird that no one thought to come here, when it's so close by? It's almost like they'd never even seen this big, convenient island."

Maui frowns, innocently as he can. "Hmm," he says. "Y'know, Rongo's been bored. Maybe he's putting up starter plants for the new voyagers."

"Yeah," she says, her lips twitching as they struggle to keep from bursting into laughter. "Rongo. God of Farmed Food. Personally came here _without anyone asking him to_ and put up plants because he's just a nice guy. His idea. Totally."

Maui shrugs. "Or Tāne-matua," he says. "Birdbrain does love his fruit trees."

She rolls her eyes and punches him on the shoulder. "You old softie," she says. "Thanks."

"What?" he says. "What'd I say?"

"You admitted everything and you know it, Fisher of Islands."

He drops the act and winks. "You're welcome," he says, gently clapping a hand on her back. "I knew you'd pick this one."

He's missed that long-suffering giggle that says she's trying to be annoyed but she can't.

Moana puts her hand up against the breadfruit wood post, her huge brown eyes looking higher and higher until she can just about see the top of the bamboo scaffolding, and there's a fire in her mixed with the joy and pride. "This'll be ready by the end of cyclone season, if we keep up the pace," she says. "One or two visits from now, you'll be welcomed in the biggest grand _fale_ this side of the ocean."

He nods, mustering the best smile he can. He may still not be super thrilled at the thought of pomp and ceremony but her people are and he shouldn't be surprised she is, too.

Plus, look at her, she's just so proud.

"Can't wait to see when it's done," he says.

She rolls her eyes. "Liar. If it were up to you we'd welcome everyone in that little shed from this morning," she says. "But thanks. That means a lot."

Her hand stays on the post a couple seconds longer than she probably meant it to.

Maui frowns.

She's nervous. He hates when she's nervous. It always makes him nervous for her and she ends up feeling guilty for even feeling like that and then he gets mad he can't just fight off the guilt with his hook and it just becomes this mess.

So, much as he still fumbles with the talking, talking will have to do.

"So what else you got planned for this patch of dirt, then?" he says, turning back towards the rest of the village in progress, the whole place humming with chatter and laughter and song as it enters the hottest part of the day and everyone takes a break from construction. "Looks like you're here to stay."

And it does. This isn't just some temporary deal that'll have them back on the ocean in a few days, this has the bones of a big village. There's a good amount of cleared forest, with scattered completed houses and some buildings for utility—different _fale_ for cooking, storage, tapa production, and so on—not far off a little land sectioned off for a _malae_ , in the distance some farms getting started. There's design here, a vision, and by the scale of this grand _fale_ and its strategic position to have a view of the village and harbour, some plans for growth.

Fa'anui, they called the settlement. Great Harbour. And it looks like they mean to put every inch of it to use.

"I may have scouted the islands a bit during those missions to the east," she says, shrinking a little like she's admitting some sort of underhanded trick. "Out of all the ones we passed while we cleared the way for my fleet, I thought this one had the best location for a new village."

"For voyaging?"

"For trade," she says. "There's passages in all directions, islands in all directions, and the waters here are safe. This settlement can become a hub for voyagers from everywhere."

It's an unconvincing performance of an afterthought when she adds, "And the hundred or so neighbouring islands are a nice bonus."

He laughs, dangerously close to having her suffer the scandal of having her hair ruffled in public. "Called it," he crows. "You're getting predictable, Curly."

She elbows him right in the gut, and when he straightens back up she's back to surveying the pretty magnificent view of the village like nothing ever happened.

She's fidgeting again, gathering the mass of curls on her head into bunches, and she looks back at him and his hook before something sets and she decides to just go for it.

"So what do you think?" she says. "Of the village, I mean. Do you like it?"

He blinks. "Well, sure," he says. "What's not to like?"

That doesn't seem to do it.

"Is that what this is about? I personally need to like this village?" he says. "Kid, since when do you need my approval for anything? Half the time I can't even give you fashion advice."

"Because your choices are terrible," she snaps. "And I don't know. I guess, once we figured you pulled up this island and you got the gods to make it easy to settle, I just want to make sure we're not screwing up all your hard work."

She yawns, right there in the heat of the midday sun, the yawn he knows from their time voyaging, whenever she had to skip a turn sleeping.

Come to think of it, how long had they been working on this new village? It's still tradewinds season, and they've already come this far? How much overtime did she put into this?

"You're our first visitor, Maui," she says, nerves pushing past the exhaustion. "It's kind of a big deal."

He shakes his head.

His little voyager, always needing to prove herself.

Maui nudges her gently as he can, and her headdress still manages to come slightly askew.

"Hey," he says. "This is your island now, okay? I pulled it up as a gift for you mortals. Take care of it, sure, but you'll know if it's good when it's working. This isn't some sort of test where I smite you if I don't agree with the colour scheme. There's no need to impress me with just how big and fancy everything is."

And that does seem to do it.

She sighs, and straightens that headdress. Pua curls up and snuggles at her feet.

"The other villages have to like this one if we have a chance at keeping our trading partners and convincing people to settle nearby," she says. "I want people to voyage again, and when they do I want to welcome them to somewhere nice, not—"

She gestures out at the mess of construction sprawling out from the gentle hills down into its generous harbour, grand in scope and beautiful in design, but still very much in progress.

"All villages look like this when you're building them, kid," Maui says, mentally filling in the gaps, adding roofs and pathways and lines of drying tapa cloth here and there, piles of discarded coconut husks and the smoke of food being cooked. A real village, thriving under her watch. "And this one's gonna look even better when it's done."

"You're just saying that," she says.

"I'm not!" he says. "Hey, prime real estate like this? New islands, few days' sail from a fertility goddess, they'll be fighting to come over here, even if the neighbours' chief in training is kinda kooky-dooks."

He leans on his hook, and imagines the completed buildings once more.

"It's gonna be amazing, Moana," he says. "Trust me. You got nothing to prove to anyone but yourself."

Moana chuckles and she elbows him, gently this time, an unspoken thanks in those huge brown eyes.

And that's probably the only thing he likes about whenever she gets nervous, the part where she calms down and everything is okay again.

She nudges Pua back awake, and heads out back onto the paths, a sheepish smile as she gestures for Maui to come follow her. "C'mon," she says. "One more stop in this tour."

He picks up Pua, who grunts and snuggles up to him in thanks. "Okay, but I dunno how you can top that Mini Maui tattoo," he says, dodging the piles of rope and wood shavings.

She rolls her eyes. "Your _fale_ , Maui."

"Right, right, right," he says. "So where am I hanging up my hook this time?"

And she's nervous again, just for a second, before the excitement pushes past the nerves and exhaustion and she turns and merely gestures again for him to follow her.

* * *

The chief's compound isn't far, a little ways from the grand _fale_ and scattered over the flatter areas uphill. There's the chief's _fale_ still in progress, not much different from the one on Motunui, and he's not sure why he's surprised, but the smaller _fale_ aren't anything too fancy. Comfortable and well-made, sure, but not decked out in a clear effort to impress the guests. Maybe the end result of the rest of the village wasn't going to be as pompous as he feared.

The one she leads him to doesn't look that different from the others nearby, kind of a standard size for what you'd expect in the chief's family compound, albeit a little wider and taller than some of the others around. He'd seen similar ones back in Motunui, enough for maybe a small family at most. Maybe this one belonged to her mom's sister, or one of the cousins from that side since Moana's paternal cousins mostly stayed behind.

He gives it another once-over, smiles at the sweet ocean view on one side and the small drop on the other, with a view of the forest and the rush of a nearby river, and just here, between this _fale_ and the chief's residence, a small area of grass just begging to have people sit and enjoy the sea breeze. If he didn't already know this was probably her aunt's place he wouldn't be above fighting or bribing someone for ownership.

"All right," he says, "who'd you kick out this time?"

Moana blinks. "Kick out?"

"Who respectfully volunteered to make room, then," Maui says. "I need to know who I'm thanking for the inconvenience."

Pua tilts his head, like he could actually understand human language.

"Maui," Moana says, "we didn't kick out anyone."

He stops. "I don't follow."

She stares at him, incredulous, before she's trying not to laugh.

"How'd you get the reputation as the smart demigod?" she says. "Maui, this is your _fale_."

His what now?

He looks down at Mini Maui, who just shrugs.

"My _fale_ ," Maui says, and it's like words don't mean anything anymore. He owns a boat and a hook. What was this about him owning anything else? "As in, my place. For me. Permanently. I'm not temporarily hijacking someone else's house. My _fale_."

"Yeah."

"In the chief's family compound."

"Yeah."

No, no, she doesn't seem to be getting this.

"The chief's _family_ compound," he says, slower this time, because this can't be right.

" _Yes!_ "

Maui opens his mouth to speak, closes it again, opens it, closes it again. Mini Maui rolls his eyes and briefly does a frankly uncalled-for fish impression, before he nudges at his host to _say something_. Which he ultimately doesn't end up doing.

Moana's red now, and shrinking in on herself, briefly playing with her hair before she puts a stop to it, but there's no hiding that worry no matter how much she liked to think of herself as something of a fellow performer and trickster.

"Look, we don't exactly have protocols for where to put a demigod's _fale_ ," she says. "The village chief's compound just seemed like the logical choice."

There was no explaining his way out of this one, either. Unless the compound's boundaries found a way to somehow have this place as kind of like an independent island in a sea of relatives, this was solidly within the same residential area, no fuzzy borderland where you could argue he was almost separate, this was barely a few minutes' walk from the chief's place itself. They meant to have him close by. They planned to have him with the sea on one side and the forest birds on the other and a whole sky all above it all. This was for him.

And if the rest of the village was anything to go by, this was Moana's idea.

She's bending down to pet Pua now, stroking his head a little before straightens back up. "Too much?" she says. "Is it too much? We could move it if you—"

"No!" he says, a little too loudly. "No, I mean, this is fine. Thank you."

She smiles past the exhaustion, singing back, "You're welcome."

It's a shaky few steps up the platform and into the actual building and he's surprised at the tremble in his hand as he puts his hook up against a post and looks around. "This is great," he says. "Nice smooth rock, forest wood, brand new mosquito screens, extra-large bamboo pillow, it's great."

Moana sighs in relief, and rolls down the tapa screens.

Hooks and spirals, hawks and boats. A sea of smaller motifs lovingly printed with templates he hadn't seen used in Motunui before. Just in case he didn't get the message that they made this with him in mind.

"We just had enough sugarcane frond thatch for your roof," Moana says. "We'll switch the rest of the roofs from coconut once our crops grow in."

"I'll have another word with Rongo."

"Maui."

"What?" he says. "He owes me!"

" _Maui_."

He huffs. "Fine," he says. "Independence. And all that. Baby's first settlement."

And there's this glow he feels inside, this warmth, as he just lets it soak in.

She swallows. "So do you like it?"

Did he _like_ it?

No oranges hanging from the rafters, no coconut fronds decorating the outside posts, no flowers covering the centre post and spilling out onto the floor. None of the old village's bits of hospitality, none of the new settlement's little flourishes and grandeur. Just a normal house, a regular old _fale_. He's local now, and he's not sure he even remembers the last time he had a home.

And she's asking if he approves?

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I like it."

And she lets her eyes slip shut and takes a moment to bask in this little victory.

He claps a hand on the Mini Maui shoulder.

"You didn't have to, Curly," he says. "You got all these other projects going; this can't have been easy to make room for."

She nudges him. "Pssh," she says. "You fished up this island and got the God of Farmed Food to give us building materials. Least we could do."

"After calling this area the Hook Islands."

"Did you or did you not fish up this archipelago?"

He can just about feel that smug little smirk as she leans against him, Mini Maui cheekily adding another point to the scoreboard, and he's not sure he's even capable of caring right now because look at this. Look at what her village did. For him, of all people. All this impressive architecture, and she knew he'd be bowled over by a simple house.

"You're gonna do just fine, Chosen One," he says, for what it's worth. "You got nothing to worry about."

He's holding her back before he can realise what's going on, and there's a hitch in his breath he doesn't notice until it's too late.

"Hey, Moana?" he says, already wincing at the waver in his voice.

She doesn't tease him, not this time. "Yeah?"

He swallows. "You don't actually think I'm family, do you?"

And there's a silence, and it's only a few seconds but it feels longer than all those centuries on his forsaken island.

She breaks away and he can't bear to look at her directly, but her tone is gentle enough. "What else would you be?"

"Don't make fun, kid."

"I'm not," she says, a sting in her voice. "Why would I? Maui, even without your powers, where else do you think I'd ask them to put your place?"

And Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, the trickster who ten times charmed sacred fire from Mahuika herself, has nothing to say.

She backtracks. "I mean," she says. "Is that weird? Do you not want to go with the family label? Because we can do with friends."

Friends? His first family in more than a thousand years, family that for once chose him instead of the other way around, and he'd just—?

Maui chokes back the tears threatening to spill out of him in a river to rival the one outside, and shoots her a watery smile. "No, not weird at all," he chokes. "Family's fine. Family's great."

If she still had any energy left, she'd probably be leaping up into his arms and smothering him in a surprisingly strong hug. But as it stands the work and the nerves seem to have left her exhausted for now, and she settles for letting her head rest against his chest before her arms lazily wrap around as much of him as they can, while Pua rests against their feet.

Moana yawns.

"Welcome to the family, then," she mumbles against him, and then adds, "Cuz."

Cousins. Okay. Okay, he could work with cousins. He'd never been a cousin before.

He hugs her back, and it takes all his strength just to remind himself not to crush her, because right now he doesn't ever want to let go.

A family. After all this time a family.

Why does he ever leave.

"Good to be home."


	2. The Trade Negotiations

**Relationships:** Moana & Original Characters, Moana & Tala, slight touches of one-sided Moana/Original Character **  
Chapter summary:** Fa'anui isn't completely independent just yet, and it's up to Moana to get supplies for the upcoming stormy weather. But Motunui is under new management now, and this negotiation may not be as easy as she'd thought.

 **Notes:** Oh, hey, the first chapter in this series with no Maui in it. He'll be back next chapter, but for now, here's Moana handling stuff on her own.

* * *

Gramma Tala always blamed Moana's stubborn streak on the chiefly side of the family. Ever since Moana could remember, Gramma would be the only person brave or crazy enough to get in the middle of one of their arguments and shout everyone down for their foolishness before silent treatments happened, family bonds inevitably broke forever, and the workings of the village ground to a halt. The chiefly side was the fighty side, and though the village crazy lady could use her family's orator skills to calm everyone down, even the village crazy lady had her limits.

"That's how that whole clan became chiefs, I think," she would mutter as she wound down by braiding Moana's hair. "Probably just decided they were and wouldn't let up until everyone agreed. Stubborn, prideful little children, the lot of them."

The hair would always tug a little more by this part of the rant.

"You promise me, Moana, when I'm gone, you keep that family talking to each other," she'd say. "That mother of yours knows how to deal with people. I can only hope you got some of her common sense."

"It hurts, Gramma," Moana would whine. "You're pulling too tight."

"I'm pulling so that you remember."

More tugs, more braids, and Moana would always sit there silently wishing that, if anything, she just inherited less hair. "I'll remember, Gramma."

"Oh, will you now?"

Moana would roll her eyes. Gramma couldn't see her. Moana could get away with that. "I'm too stubborn to forget something like that."

And Gramma Tala would laugh, and the tugging would grow a little more gentle. Still firm, just no longer angry. "Yes," she'd say. "You are. And you better watch that. There's too much of your father in you."

"Yes, Gramma."

"And don't roll your eyes at me. Gramma sees everything."

"No, Gramma."

How did she always _know?_

During one of the post-fight braiding sessions, in a clearing overlooking the sea, Gramma chuckled as she began to insert tiare blossoms into the braids.

"It's not always that bad, you know, the stubbornness. Sometimes that family can use it for good," she said, a fondness in her voice as the stalks gently pushed in between the tight bundles of hair and the air filled with the sweet scent of tiare in bloom. "Did I ever tell you how your grandfather and I got married?"

Moana had gasped at that, wrenching her attention away from the call of the sea for once to focus on her grandmother's story. "No!" she said. "What happened? Was it romantic? Did you two cause some trouble?"

"Oh, that probably goes without saying," she said, and tapped at Moana's shoulder to tell her to turn around. "I'll tell you, but you promise me," she said, "you keep this family talking to each other after I die."

Moana whirled around to face her, the sea breeze cooling her from behind. "You're not gonna die, Gramma."

"Promise me, Moana."

Moana sighed. "Okay, I promise," she said. "Now tell me the story."

Gramma pretended to frown, pretended to consider it, before she leaned in, grinning. "Well, it's a story of chiefly stubbornness and orator peacekeeping … "

* * *

You would think Moana's blood had come close to boiling that time she squared off against, you know, an actual lava monster.

You'd probably be wrong.

Moana doesn't glare, she's in no position to.

But there's nothing stopping her from a good, withering glower.

Look at him, sitting there all smug with his stupid chiefly headdress and his stupid whale tooth necklace and his stupid council in this stupid council _fale_. That used to be her family's council _fale_. Whatever, he probably found a way to make it worse somehow. Decorate it wrong or something. What in the _world_ made her dad think her cousin Selia of all people would make a good chief to replace him once they left Motunui?

And what made him think Moana could handle this trade negotiation alone, surrounded by almost nothing but this side of the family?

She takes a silent, calming breath.

"Please, Selia," she says, again, "we're not asking for a handout. We're not. I had to fight the council for permission to even be able to come here and ask for a trade. But cyclone season is in a few months and we just don't have enough tapa to replace all the—"

"You've said."

It physically hurts to restrain her balk of indignation. "Cuz—"

"Moana," he says, straightening up like his greater size and height would stand the slightest chance of intimidating someone who fought a lava monster, like their age difference would actually mean anything to her now, "I understand. I do. We all do."

He gestures at his council around them, who nod and mumble in agreement, mostly his relatives, mostly older generation folks who recoiled at the idea of voyaging.

Selia continues. "But you said so yourself," he says. "Cyclone season is coming. And your people took half of my workforce."

" _Our_ people," she says. "They never stopped being your people, and you are welcome to visit any time you want. Selia, we all grew up together, worked together, we share everything we make—"

"We did," he says. "Until they left."

How could he even say that?

Selia closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them he's calmer but no less stubborn. "Moana, Motunui lost some of its best weavers, fishers, and builders when you left to start a new village," he says. "You don't think we're adjusting, too? Let me repeat again, we lost nearly half our population when you left last year—half—and a lot of the people left are the people who were too old, too young, too pregnant, or too scared to make the journey. In the year since I took my title I've been working to just keep everything going. We just don't have the extra to give."

"But you do have enough extra to trade."

He shuts his big stupid mouth.

"First navigator in a thousand years, remember? What, I wouldn't have seen a few traders near here? I wouldn't notice their tapa had designs from Motunui?" she says, and now it's her turn to straighten up. "Mulberry and breadfruit trees take years to grow, cousin, and our trees just aren't ready to make tapa yet."

"And _my_ people can barely make anything else."

And she shuts her big stupid mouth.

"Moana, people want tapa," he says. "We can make that. And trade helps us get the things we need that we're having a hard time making now. We have none to just give away."

"I never said give away! And it's not like I forced them to come!" she says. "You don't think we're also having a hard time with half the people we used to have? We've spent this whole time building a village from scratch. We're tired. And our farms and plantations are just getting started. I wouldn't have come if there were other ways to get the materials."

She sighs.

"Look, we don't have much to trade with right now but I brought obsidian," she says. "Our pearls are beautiful, you wouldn't believe the colour and—"

"Cyclone season is coming, Moana," he says, slower this time, like she's three years old. "People need clothes and mosquito curtains. This is not the time to peddle axes and jewellery. None of our partners will ask for that when they can get tapa."

"Fine mats, then" she blurts. Everyone loves fine mats. "We're not done yet but if you give us a few weeks—"

He holds up a hand, sighing, and does a little glower of his own. "Maybe you could try calling in a favour from your god friends, ask them to grow you some trees or whatever perks you get from your special relationship," he says, quirking an eyebrow, "Chosen One."

And Moana's pretty sure she does feel the prickle and bubbling of her blood actually beginning to boil.

* * *

"Thought I'd find you here," a hesitant voice calls from behind her.

Moana hurls one more broken-off piece of stick into the sand. "Hey, Lolo."

Her cousin tucks a nonexistent lock of hair behind her ear, and slowly takes a seat on the same bent coconut tree, putting on a familiar nervous smile.

"So I hear your meeting with my brother didn't go too well."

Moana snaps a couple more branches, really feeling that sharp crack and splinter.

"No it did not."

Lolo lets her feet sway a little, her toes brushing up against the sand.

"Why'd they they send you alone, anyway?" she says. "You know Selia would agree to anything if your dad asked."

Moana shrugs. "Something about learning to handle these things on my own? Diplomacy?" she says. "Chief training. I don't know."

"That Cousin Tui," she says, shaking her head. "My mom said he started your training before you could even talk, bring you around the village to watch him handle things."

Another broken-off piece of stick flies right into the sand. "Yeah, and you'd think that would make me better at this," Moana says. "Can't even convince our closest neighbour to trade anything before the rains come and the mosquitos start multiplying."

"Rainy season that bad over there, huh?"

"More like rainy season that wet," she says, and hurls one final piece of stick into the sand. Her fingers grip along the coconut tree, a fingernail or two tracing the edges of bark. "We finished building everything by the time last year's cyclone season came around. Maui visiting helped speed things up," she says. "Some of our tapa just got too damaged by the storms, and the end of last rainy season saw a lot of mosquitos."

Lolo's smile gives way to worry. "Did anyone—?"

"No," Moana sighs. "Thank the gods. But every time I saw someone covered in bites I'd panic a little. I've had those fevers, cuz. You never know when it's something to worry about."

Lolo nods. She'd had them, too. It was never pleasant for anyone.

Moana's fingers trace along the nearest edges of the coconut bark. "Teiki—"

"Oh no! The little dancer? Pepeu's boy?"

"He came down with … something," Moana says. "One of the healers said it was from the damp. It wasn't one of the fevers but it was bad. And I got scared. Our first year and we almost lost one of your youngest voyagers."

She swallows, and her hand sparks in mild pain as she grips the bark tighter. "I won't let the rains or the tradewinds take anyone this year."

"So what'll you do?" Lolo says. "My brother won't budge on this."

"If Motunui won't trade with us, I'll try further west," Moana says. "Selia says otherwise but I know some of the old trading partners probably won't mind a little more obsidian for a little less tapa. There's this one I know who'll trade all sorts of things if it means he can work on his inventions, and there's a diver near there who'd kill for better pearls."

Lolo frowns. "And Motunui?" she says. "This isn't going to change things, is it?"

Yes, what about Motunui, her former home, her village's nearest ally? What would happen now that they don't seem to want anything to trade and their new chief seems to hold a grudge against her for charming the gods and taking away his people?

Moana means it when she shakes her head and replies, "I don't know."

* * *

Trust her to stew about her cousin's decision until the morning tide begins to go out. Moana is this close to kicking herself for letting this drag on for so long when the glare of the coming noon sun begins to break up with the shadows of returning boats.

Moana shields her eyes for a better look and sighs, falling back in relief against her hull as women in the distance make their way, baskets in tow, to the beach.

The fishermen. They must've started the day's fishing somewhere else and then decided to end here.

Her sail might still be furled at the moment but the fishermen know the boat all too well, and they're all hooting and cheering and calling out Moana's name as they come closer to the beach. She sighs, and her smile goes from polite to genuinely excited as their faces come into view. She can't believe it.

It had barely been a year, how had they all changed so much, and yet not at all? Since when was Teva that tall, or Ufie that broad? How did Manu in his older age manage to snag the biggest bonito? Moana sweeps them all into hugs and _hongi_ as soon as they and their boats are safely on shore, and it's not long before they're launching into the usual little quips.

"Look at you, still so short!"

"You been getting enough sleep, Moana?"

"Guys, guys, look, she has a new tattoo!"

"So much blackwork, how did you not pass out?"

"Why are you here and not fighting off an army of suitors, eh?"

She's blushing, and they're blushing, and it's just good to see them all again, them and all the others who've just arrived at the beaches to pick up the day's catches. The drudgery of the morning's catches becomes a joyous little reunion, and by the end of it she smells of fish and sweat and doesn't care one bit about it.

"We'll distribute the catches and then we're off to wash and get our share," Lasalo the head fisherman beams, hefting a net of catches out from his boat to tip into the baskets as Moana tries not to stare too hard at the flex in his arms. "Come join us at the meal," he says. "I'm sure the boys would wanna catch up."

Quickly followed by the crowd of fishermen agreeing loudly and another round of playful shoving.

She considers her boat again, looks out at the receding waters, and shrugs. It'd be hard to leave now even if she wanted to, and besides, who turns down food?

"Sure," she says. "I'm starving."

And the beach erupts into cheers.

* * *

Teva almost chokes on his share of the fish.

"Selia at least gave you a bit of a feed after the welcome, though?"

Moana shrugs again. "Sure, just sort of a regular meal, nothing special," she says. "I was glad to have anything after all the sailing it took to get here."

Teva sniffs. "Figures," he says, pushing away his share of the entrails from his leaf packet. "He never did like it when we brought you up. Said you guys were long gone so there's no use dwelling. I think he was jealous. But I didn't think he'd go that far, not even bother to throw you a feast. Bet you didn't even get a platter, had to eat off leaves or from a basket like the rest of us."

"Oh, I don't really need a—"

"Aw, come on, Moana!" Ufie says. "You're a chief now, aren't you? Visiting chiefs get feasts."

"And platters," Manu adds. "And bonito, not this common stuff."

She's blushing again as the fishermen mumble their agreements.

"Still a chief's daughter, unfortunately," she says. "Dad's not ready to retire _just_ yet."

"But you found the island, you said," Lasalo pipes up, and takes another bite of baked fish. "And you planned the village."

"With the council approving every step," Moana says.

Lasalo swallows. "And now you're here," he says. "Handling chief business alone. I'd say that's pretty chiefly."

And she's grateful the tan from the voyage here is helping to hide any deepening redness.

Married life agrees with Lasalo, Moana notices, as he gets up to gather the leftovers and packets of banana leaf into a nearby basket. Handsome as ever and a little wider and darker besides. She is happy for him and his new little family, she is, though that doesn't stop the sarcastic little voice inside her quipping that Maui was right, and maybe she should've said something before he found someone else.

She frowns. Fisherman. The council would've never gone for it, not with voyaging back in their lives and foreign royalty back as an option.

"So what'd they send you here for, then?" Lasalo says, tossing a discarded leaf package into the basket. "You guys gathering supplies for the rainy—Oh!"

The contents of the basket spill out from a tear in the basket, and Lasalo sighs quietly before bending down to clean up the mess. "Useless thing," he says.

Moana sets aside her leaf packet and bats away his hand before he can object to her helping. "Looks like you'll be needing a new one."

Lasalo frowns. "That one _was_ new."

"What?" Moana says.

Teva pipes up. "Your cousin's been having the village focus so much on tapa that we can't really do anything else," he sniffs, wrapping up the remains of his meal. "The weavers barely have time for what they're actually good at."

"Neither does anyone else," Ufie says, "now that the other villages are preparing to go east."

The joy at the news of everyone voyaging again—east! The direction of her new village! Word had spread!—is barely a spark of light inside her before she sees the droop in their shoulders and the dread in their eyes.

Oh.

Oh, what had she started.

And what kind of chief could she hope to be if these are the sorts of consequences of her leadership?

"The other villages are trading less," she says, "because they're all building boats and gathering supplies."

Lasalo nods, picking up the last of the spilt refuse. "Yeah," he says. "So now we're all working extra to trade what we can before they all launch in a couple years."

Moana swallows. "Motunui isn't in the market for some obsidian and pearls, is it?"

Lasalo shrugs. "Obsidian and pearls? Sure, we could do with more axes, and jewellery trades pretty well," he says. "Sails would be more useful, though."

"And nets," Ufie says, packing up his meal as well. "And rope."

Manu sniffs. "Ti and hibiscus skirts," he says, cleaning his hands on his frayed ti leaf skirt. "We keep running out."

"Or at least some more voyaging boats," Teva adds. "Be more useful to go over to them 'stead of waiting for them to come here half the time. We still remember your voyaging lessons, Moana. We'd be up for some trading."

The list of items keeps growing, further burying that small spark of joy Moana might've felt over the return of voyaging. These people—her people—needed basics, things that they all grew up taking for granted. And she'd not only made them harder to get, but started taking away the people who provided them in the first place. On purpose. It had been her goal since the beginning to influence other villages into voyaging.

It wasn't a mistake to start everyone voyaging again. It wasn't.

But she's going to have to make this transition easier on everyone, not just the people setting off to find new lands.

Moana gathers everything into the broken basket, despite Lasalo's objections about how he has it don't worry he can clean this, and makes sure to hold it by the bottom so that any spillage is at a minimum. She takes another look at the fishermen.

It had barely been a year, how had they all changed so much, and yet not at all? Since when was Teva that tired, or Ufie that stressed? How did Manu in his older age manage with that fraying old skirt for so long? Moana sweeps them all into hugs and _hongi_ as soon as everyone is full and clean, and it's not long before she's going around the rest of the village catching up with everyone else.

She won't lose anyone here, either.

* * *

She leaves with the evening tide, the barest of niceties as she says goodbye to her cousins, Selia stoic and dignified in a way that seemed to follow everyone from the chiefly line of the family, Lolo as meek and gentle as anyone not from that line, and those from the other branches of the family too busy to come say goodbye. There's no ceremonial farewell, there isn't even a small gift of food to take for the journey; all she recalls is Selia excusing himself to deal with the latest little emergency, and Lolo telling her to come visit whenever she wants.

"This is still your home, these are still your people, and you are welcome any time," she insists, though at this point it's hard to believe, and Moana nods and grasps her into one final hug before she pushes off.

"Moana!" Teva calls from the shore, followed by a small group of the other fishermen running after him. "Moana, wait!"

The boat is just about to start floating when Moana decides to stop pushing it any further.

It's Lasalo wading out into the water, leading the way as he balances a small basket on his head. "Got you something for the trip."

Teva smirks. "Since our dear new chief thinks you're too good to need provisions."

She protests, but they insist, and she tries to pull rank and command them to take it home to their families, and they laugh like it's nothing less than yet another empty threat from the tiny little tagalong who'd hold no qualms about bugging them for a boat ride or a sailing lesson in front of her father.

"I got some fruit and bait, don't worry!"

Lasalo brushes it off. "Just take the basket before this one breaks, too."

So she does.

And it's filled with drinking nuts and little packets of fish, both cooked for tonight and dried for the journey, and on top, a small packet of prawns in coconut cream. Her favourite.

Lasalo's smile is a mix of emotions as he and the others gaze up at her from the shore. "Don't forget about us when you're chief, eh?" he says.

She shakes her head, and puts the basket safe in her hold. "Never."

It's not her cousin's attendants, or Moana herself, who give her boat that final push into the water. It's the fishermen.

The hook and spiral of her sail flap proudly in the late afternoon breeze as she sets off to the west.

* * *

"No!" Moana had said so long ago, eyes wide open as she leaned forward, hooked on every word out of her grandmother's mouth. "Grampa really did that?"

"He really did that," Gramma Tala said, a fond smile at the memory. "He just stuck his foot down, and said no, I'm marrying her, the hyperactive one from the orator family. He wouldn't listen to the council, wouldn't even eat until they agreed to at least consider it. Oh, I was so worried, and so angry at him! I thought my handsome young chief would waste away!"

Moana giggled, trying to even imagine what someone she guessed looked like her dad would look like all thin and hollow-cheeked.

"So I had to work quickly before he pulled another stunt," Gramma whispered. "I found out all the other women they had in mind instead for my darling, and then I found them all husbands they would like better."

"All of them?"

"All eight of them," she grinned. "Except the one who had her eye on a weaver. She got a nice lady instead."

Moana gasped. Gramma really did see everything, if she knew not only all the people the council approved of but also what they would like and who they would get along with.

"But what did the council say?" Moana said. "What about Grampa's family?"

Gramma laughed, just a small chuckle to herself. "You know what got them to come around?" she said. "We gathered them all up into the council _fale_ , and your grandfather, he sat them all down and forced them to listen to him. He forced them to all talk."

Moana nodded.

"That's what works with that family, I think. Maybe with all chiefs," Gramma said. "When they're angry, if it's not war then it's all yelling and then walking away until someone's forced to apologise."

"That's what you do!"

"Yes, that's what I do!" Gramma laughed. "They'd never talk to each other if they weren't gathered round and forced to talk. And that's what you need to do when things get heated, Moana," she said. "You need to make them talk. Even if _you_ don't want to talk. Walk away if you need to cool down, but you have to go back to them with a solution, because they sure won't make the first move."

Moana nodded.

"You promise me, Moana."

Moana barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Yes, Gramma," she said. "I'll keep this family talking to each other."

And at this Gramma Tala smiled, and gestured for Moana to help her up off her seat. "Good," she said. "Good."

* * *

Her boat is just that much lighter from the lack of rock and precious stones, but much more cramped for all her efforts. Though she'd be lying if she said it wasn't a relief to not have to constantly worry about accidentally slicing her leg open or losing an entire rope to the obsidian.

Still, she's proud all the same, chest puffed and chin tilted proudly upwards as she regards the piles of tapa bundled safely in her hold and up on her outrigger. It's not enough to replace all the clothes they'd lose—they'll have to make do with other materials for now—but enough to replace the mosquito curtains they'd lost during the last rainy season, with a few extra to spare. Some villages even gave her a few as a gift, a thank you for making the waters safe again and freeing Maui from his exile so he could, among other things, reintroduce wayfinding to the world.

And it may have been her natural draw towards people, or it may have been the years of Maui's corrupting influence on her curiosity, but she made it a point to spend every trip asking around the village to see how they were doing, and the stories didn't change that much.

The ones preparing to leave were anxious about making do while waiting for their crops to grow, the ones preparing to stay behind suddenly took a lot of interest in trade. Some people had too many red feathers to deal with now, others had too many sails, some people were at a loss about where to trade their whale teeth or bedrolls. Now that everyone was planning to leave, the islands had to talk to each other now to survive, no more isolation.

And no more trade without a real system in place.

She takes a steadying breath at the sight of Motunui's leeward side on the horizon, and lets her fingers curl around her abalone pendant.

She's going to keep this family talking to each other. She's going to get all these islands talking to each other.

She just hopes her cousin goes along with this.

* * *

It's hard to even remember what she was so frustrated about with Selia's eldest sitting beside him, her huge brown eyes blinking up at her in the sort of fascination only toddlers seemed to have. She begins to get up to crawl over to her when—

"Palila, no, next to me," Selia says, patting the seat beside him not unlike the way Moana's dad used to do. The girl frowns, and resigns herself to her proper place beside her father. "Chief training," he says to Moana. "You understand."

Moana nods. She does.

"So you got the tapa after all," Selia says, straightening up, eyebrows raised. "No godly intervention this time?"

And now she remembers.

"The gods help me when they want to, I never asked them for—" She takes a breath, and barely resists the urge to storm off, especially in front of the child. "Nope, breaking the cycle," she says. "No, Selia, the gods had nothing to do with it. Sailed on my own, traded on my own. Didn't even see Maui out there."

He nods, genuinely surprised, before he continues.

"So is there anything we can help you with while you're here?" he says.

Moana shrugs. "A water refill, some provisions for the trip back," she says, "and for you to hear me out. Because I've got a plan, cuz, and it's gonna help all of us out."

And there goes the frown, followed by the tiniest hint of a head tilt.

"Go on."

Moana grins.

It's simple, really, and she's surprised no one thought to do this before.

All the villages had been dealing with trade and local manufacturing on their own, dealing with shortages and surpluses locally and just hoping the other villages happened to have whatever they were looking for, hers and Motunui included. They couldn't just rely on themselves anymore, not with voyaging back as an option and all the complications that came with splitting villages up. They all need a system, at least while all the villages adjust to either building themselves or coping without a lot of its population.

"Because we're used to how it was before," she says, surprised at the look of relief on her cousin's face. "We'd banned voyaging of hundreds of years. We forgot that the villages used to talk to each other."

"But we've talked for years now," he says, gently taking Palila off his lap and back onto the seat next to him. "We've been trading ever since you restored the Heart."

"But village to village," Moana says. "What I'm suggesting is a big meeting. All the villages. And since all the new voyagers are going to pass by Motunui on the way east, I'm thinking it should be here, somewhere we can all reach. We sit down, we talk about which things we can all produce, and we figure out some steady trading routes. Fixed products, division of labour. And we decide at the meeting when we need to renegotiate."

He frowns again, placing his daughter back in her seat, before giving up and letting her sit in his lap. He straightens up again, as dignified as he can manage. "When?"

"The start of next year's trade season," she says. "All the villages, gathered here while the fleets prepare to launch. I've already talked to the other chiefs and they're up for it."

"You've decided all this before getting my permission?"

"Because we all know I'm just gonna pester you until you give in," she smirks. "So what do you say?"

The council around him mumbles and murmurs, and she's about to seize up and just find some hair or bits of skirt to fiddle with to calm herself down, when Selia holds up a hand and the crowd falls into silence.

Palila giggles, tries out the hand trick for herself to find everyone still quiet, and giggles again.

"I think," Selia says, and impossibly, the stoic serious cousin who is too much like her father, the cousin who grew up reprimanding Moana for wasting her station as the chief's daughter, cracks a smile, "this is something we can work with." And then adds, "Cuz."

Moana just about faints in relief.

Okay. Okay, maybe she could do this chief thing after all.

* * *

 **Notes:** Okay, next up, baby's first suitor, complete with Big Bro Maui there to play matchmaker!


	3. The Suitor

**Chapter Summary:** As both daughter of the chief and a future chief in her own right, Moana was always going to start getting suitors at some point. She just didn't think the very first one would be so perfect? A charming, handsome voyager who's seen the world and sails like the wind? And he's foreign royalty to boot? By tradition she has to say no to his first few proposals, but what's the point in that when he just feels like the right one?

 **Notes:** It's left deliberately vague where the suitor is from and where the kingdom of Motuloa is, mostly because I have no idea where it would be, either. But definitely somewhere in contact with Melanesia, Asia, and possibly Australia. Moana seems to have an idea of what a princess is, so it's fair to assume there are kingdoms in the area that Motunui just hasn't contacted since isolating themselves from the world.

While I'm here, disclaimer that I know nothing about sailing. Despite my fishing-related day job and there being a yacht club literally walking distance from my house. Also while I'm here: guys, Pua is _old_. He's there when Moana's like eight, so he's at least eight years old around the movie, which isn't exactly the maximum lifespan of a kunekune but isn't exactly young, either. So he's quite a bit older here, five years after the events of the film.

 **Warning for a forced kiss involving one person trying and failing to push the other away.** If you want to avoid it, once you get to "Oh, he's cheating", just scroll to the next section.

* * *

He passes the small gap in the reef and begins to round the island Motutapu as the sun nears its peak, his tiny fleet of two vessels slowed almost precariously by an abundance of cargo and people. From her shady vantage point near the harbour a worry stirs in her, both for this stranger and for the integrity of his admittedly beautiful head voyaging canoe, before she turns to the demigod sprawled out lazily by her side.

"Never seen that trader before," Moana says, squinting at the canoe in the distance. "He must be new; it's a risk to load that much onto one boat."

Maui yawns and drags himself up to see what she's talking about, and it's a second of looking before he raises an eyebrow and shifts for a second to his hawk form for a better view. It's another couple of seconds, and then he's back to sitting beside her again as a man, eyebrow still raised, gaze shifting rapidly between Moana and the new arrivals.

"You think he's a trader?"

Moana frowns, and looks again, this time cupping the area around her eyes with her hands so she can be sure the sun's glare isn't playing any tricks on her. Voyaging canoe, nicer than most of the others she's seen, design not too different from some of the ones she'd seen during her westernmost explorations, though not a specific sail she remembers. More assistants than she's typically seen with traders. She can't make out the cargo from here but it doesn't look like the typical supplies and basics of a newcomer, more like the organised and more unusual wares of a trader.

"He doesn't look like most of the new residents."

Maui is genuinely surprised, staring at her like she just sprouted a second head.

"What?" she says.

And he's still staring, frowning in disbelief and, if she didn't know better, disgust?

She's scoffing when she asks again, "What?"

" _Moana of Fa'anui_ ," he says, sounding out every syllable with volume and intent, "do you honestly think that handsome young thing drowning in attendants and exotic goods is just here to trade some breadfruit or settle into the village?"

"Maui, I can barely make them out from here." She looks back at the boat, and she shrugs. "And I don't know, they don't exactly seem to be threatening war."

He smacks himself on the forehead while Mini Maui, in a rare turn of events, gestures what she can only guess is a nonverbal _are you kidding me_ in her direction.

Maui pinches the bridge of his nose. "See, this is why you missed out on the cute fisherman on Motunui, kid," he mumbles. "This is why you need my help."

"I told you, you really need to let that go."

"Not a chance," Maui says. "Look, just head on over to the grand _fale_ , I'm sure your parents will be calling you there anyway."

But she's curious about the trader now. She blames Maui's influence and she's probably not wrong to, but either way, now that there's a question posed there is the overwhelming urge to answer it, and it's an urge that Maui picks up on right away.

He's smirking, heaving himself up with his hook before he leans against it. "You wanna check it out before the welcome, don't you?"

She gets up as well, batting her lashes and grinning her most innocent, most winning grin. "Please?"

His long-suffering sigh is almost funny in all its overwrought drama, and it clashes spectacularly with the smile in his eyes. "I've spoiled you," he says, and in a blink the man beside her is nowhere to be found, in his place a giant hawk, its massive head already bowed and its wings spread in preparation for its rider.

She giggles as she ties her hair into a tight bun, and can't resist a gentle stroke along his head feathers before she gets on. "Thanks, cuz."

He chirps what she can only imagine is giant hawk for _you're welcome_ , and she barely has time to roll her eyes and tighten her grip before there is a massive flap of his wings and a swirl of dust beneath them, and they're up in the air.

For a second she's weightless, dangerously close to coming away from the hawk body, and then all of a sudden she's not. Barely another second passes before the horizon disappears above her field of vision, and the wind conspires to take its turn to try to knock her off her ride while the ground and rocky shore rise up rapidly to meet her. She squeals in terrified joy, her fingers clutching at what feathers they can and her legs clamping for dear life, and it's a concerted effort to remember what this was all for in the first place. Maui's wings spread out like a sail in the wind, and there's another gust of air in her face threatening to knock her off, before the dive comes to an end, and she and Maui take a moment to just soar.

Okay. Okay, this will never get old.

She's almost too enthralled by the beauty of the reef in the daytime, bright blue-green against the dark of the deeper waters, before it takes a knowing nudge of Maui's head to remind her what she needed this flight for in the first place.

Moana peeks her head past his, and squints against the wind to peep out towards the harbour.

It was indeed safe to say the boats were probably from far in the west, and using the newer boat configurations to boot, though it could just be her, but this little fleet looks like it's a bit older and more worn than the usual new builds or newly-restored canoes. Beautiful feather ornamentation on the masts, downright intricate carvings and inlays along the hull, even on the smaller and more weathered canoe she can only assume would normally be used for messenger purposes.

And their _wares_. Something of a challenge to see in detail from their distance and with the wind in her face but among other things she can make out tapa, pigs, and the most unusual baskets she's ever seen. If she didn't know any better she could swear they're made of stone. The crew are terrified at the sight of the giant hawk before they recognise who it is, and when they do Maui is all too willing to set off a friendly screech of greeting that makes Moana wince as it rings in her ear, followed by a few aerial tricks that draw him back away from the crew.

Maui raises his head in the formation that means _do you want another look_ before Moana shakes her head and taps his neck in the pattern that means _no_. He nods, and they're on the harbour with Maui as human again before the fleet can so much as dock.

Maui leans against his hook, smug and bursting with a squeal she can just about feel building in his chest. "So?" he says, his tone spiralling up to ridiculous heights. "Does he still look like a trader to you?"

Moana shakes her hair free of its restraints, and gathers it into some semblance of dignity. "Yes?"

And she could swear he looks like he's about to shake her.

* * *

The assistants begin to free the cargo of its restraints as soon as they're safely docked, and Moana can't help but give the boats as close a look as she can. Though, this being the people formerly of Motunui, she's not the only one. There's a crowd already beginning to form, clustered around the new boats as they exchange theories about where these strangers had come from and what they meant to do.

"Traders, do you think?" someone says.

"That doesn't look like the stuff the agreements said we'd get."

"What kind of baskets are _those?_ "

It's a little bit of weaving through everyone before people begin to make way, but the effort is worth it to see the boats up close. They're exquisite, sails painted with geometric curvilinear motifs to match the exquisitely carved and ornamented hulls, red feather mast decorations swaying majestically in the breeze. The last boat she remembered like this came from the one by that surprisingly powerful chief—well, king, really—that one of the trading partner villages fell under, one of the few trading partners who actually offered boats. Was this from their village—well, kingdom?—or was it traded? Fa'anui had little need for new voyaging canoes now that their fleet had found a home, but she'd reconsider if it meant she could barter something for that beautiful small messenger canoe. Oh, the speeds she could go on that thing.

"She's small but she's fast," a voice comes from behind her, dark and smooth and friendly, though you wouldn't have guessed it from the strength of the punch she throws in shock.

When she turns back towards the voice she's stammering, babbling a nonsensical improvised apology as the small crowd of strangers behind her panics over the injured figure in their midst. One of the entourage looks up and seizes on her, yelling at her for _daring_ to lay a hand on him, let alone nearly touch the most sacred part of his body, when the figure nudges him aside, moaning and asking everyone to relax, he's fine, he's fine, just caught off guard.

He's tall when he stands to his full height, and even taller with his red headdress, with enough musculature under the slight layer of padding that she'd be careful about picking a fight with him. She apologises again, profusely, eyes down and shoulders tensed because of course it's her, of course it's _her_ , of _all_ people, who somehow manages to start an international incident within the first five minutes of a new arrival.

"Excuse me," the person—the chief?—says, amidst her panicked apologies. "Sorry—"

"—and it's just, it's instinct, maybe, and I never meant to—"

" _Hey_ ," he insists, and somehow that's enough to make her shut up.

He's smarting a bit from the growing bruise on his shoulder, struggling to put on a smile to reassure her, but it's nothing hostile. He's not all tensed up and ready to retaliate. "I get it," he says. "I came up from behind, you didn't know I was there. It happens. I shouldn't have done that. Now just … _relax_. Okay, lady? It's fine. I forgive you. You're forgiven."

Luckily the height difference meant she was only dangerously close to touching and injuring a foreign chief's head in public, not actually traipsing directly into disaster. She'd be relieved if it weren't for the rest of his party silently glaring at her.

"Sorry," she says, daring to actually look at the stranger and his party this time. "Again."

She swallows, and curses the heat rising up in her cheeks and then just spreading to the rest of her body. "And yes, that canoe looks like it moves like the wind."

"Oh, you wouldn't be wrong." The chief says, wincing through the fake smile as his deep brown eyes sparkle with what she could swear is the real urge to laugh. He's younger than she would've guessed for a chief, Moana realises, though not much older than her. Her cousin Selia's age at most. He's both amused and concerned when he asks, "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

"Scare? Me?" Moana says. "Pfft. No. Nooo. I don't get scared."

Beside her Maui guffaws, before he catches Moana's gaze and rightfully shuts up.

Moana turns back to the chief, smiling in the generically polite way the foreign chiefs tended to react well to. "Anyway," she says. "It's a long way from—" There's another quick glance at the boat designs, a vague recollection of one of the other men in the party orating for someone. "—Motuloa," she manages, and internally breathes a sigh of relief when no one takes offence at the mistaken name and the one already talking to her actually looks impressed at the call. "You'll be welcomed uphill at our grand _fale_ , if you'll follow me."

She double-checks the visiting party. The one who started the conversation, the tall handsome one with the nice voice, drowning in red and flanked by an orator and what she now recognises as attendants, seems safest to address first. "So are you here to renegotiate our trade agreement, Chief … ?"

And the smile does manage to escape this time, and it just about lights up his face. His orator—the orator she remembers from the big trade meeting last year, come to think of it—is about to step in when he decides to answer for himself.

"Um. Prince, actually," he mumbles, a look almost of apology as he says the words. "Prince Tuleimotu of Motuloa, son of King Tuiumi of Motuloa. And no, not here to trade. Not exactly. If you could direct us to your chief, though … "

Oh.

A prince.

Well, that's … new.

She glances over to Maui, whose mini tattoo self is going wild encouraging her to keep talking to him, before turning back.

"Forgive me," she stammers.

Eye contact, she reminds herself. _Avert._

"Prince Tuleimotu, then," she says. "My mistake. I'm Moana of Fa'anui, daughter of the chief. Welcome to our village."

And at this all pretense of the prince's calm disappears, all signs of aloof royal dignity pushed aside to make room for genuine surprise and relief.

"This is Moana? Master Wayfinder, Restorer of the Heart, Hero to All? That Moana?" he says, and his orator confirms before she can get a word in. "I'm—Wow," he says, gaping at her like it's impossible she's here in the first place. "All these legends and after a while you'd think it was all exaggerated, but I never thought you'd actually live up to the—"

He catches himself. "Okay, now I'm sorry," he says, and gives her a _hongi_. "Good to meet you."

"Same to you," she says as they break away. "Oh, and this is Maui!" She gestures in the direction of Maui, who's just gone infuriating now with his knowing look of barely-contained laughter. "Shapeshifter, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero to All, and so on."

Maui winks at the prince. "Hey," he says, and manages to stay surprisingly dignified as they _hongi_.

Prince Tuleimotu blinks at the sight of him and his hook. "The giant hawk."

"Yep," Maui says, and sidles over behind Moana to push her gently forward. "And you might recognise this one from earlier, too."

Moana glares. "Maui."

"That was you riding the hawk?" the prince balks. "My crew and I thought we were seeing things! Giant hawk? Sure, it's the east, it's full of horrors! Only crazy people go there! But people crazy enough to do that?"

It takes a few more less-than-subtle nudges before Moana gives in. "We wanted a closer view of the boats," she says. "I'm sorry we scared you."

And there's the laughter again in Prince Tuleimotu's dark eyes, eyes she has to look away from now that she knows his station, but eyes she can't seem to stop being drawn to all the same. "No, no worries," he says, "I don't get scared, either."

Moana chuckles, though puts a stop to it right away. Could you laugh around a prince? Was it rude to laugh around them or rude not to laugh at their jokes?

Maui has no such compulsions, though being a demigod and outranking everyone that was probably to be expected. The laughter inside him hasn't escaped, not yet, not all of it, but his tone is spiralling again to great heights, and there's a song in his voice.

"So, Prince Tuleimotu," he says, practically singing out each word, "clear something up for us. She thought you were here to trade. I had other theories. Between us, demigod to royalty to … more royalty, what brings you to our humble home?"

The orator is about to step in again, only to once again be foiled by the prince.

He's looking over her now, really taking in the details as an awe and an almost shyness begins to take over his face. There's a little debate that looks like he's having with himself in his head, before he just seems to go for it.

"Well, this was going to come out sooner or later," he says, and the smooth deepness of his voice wavers with embarrassment as he turns to Moana, "Moana of Fa'anui, Master Wayfinder, Hero to All, I've been sent by my father, to ask for your hand in marriage."

* * *

So the walk to the grand _fale_ is … weird.

As is the welcome ceremony that Moana as the daughter of the chief has to prepare the kava for. It's an ordeal just to keep her attention on just making a good batch when she can feel everyone's eyes on her and she can see the attendants making repeated trips to fetch more presents from the boats, and it gets worse when, as the welcome goes on, it sinks in that this may well be the first of many awkward welcome ceremonies.

Maui, however, has the time of his life teasing Moana for hooking herself a prince on the first go.

"So, if this all works out," he grins once the welcome is over, "does this mean I finally get to call you Princess?"

She deserves an award for not smacking him upside the head in front of everyone.

This being the first chance in hundreds of years to have a royal wedding in all its pomp and circumstance, it's strange to finally see what that means in practice. In all her years growing up with Motunui's isolation, she had known even chiefly marriage ceremonies to be vaguely formal, but never lavish. After all, after hundreds of years without contact with other villages, there was no need for great big proposals and introductions. Everyone knew each other and even arranged matches involved people who were at least friends beforehand, and there was little need for bringing huge gifts of pigs or fine mats when they all belonged to the same village, and, increasingly, the same extended family anyway.

So to go from that to this, to orators making speeches and a parade of pigs and presents, it's … not exactly a surprise but she can't deny it's at least a little bit weird to finally experience. She's the daughter of the chief now, and what's more she's in line to be chief in her own right. This is what they think is worth exchanging for her village's approval. This is what they think is worth exchanging for a chance at her heart and her eventual children.

Though she has to admit that, for people who had only known her for a short time during last year's big inter-village conference, they sure seemed to think she was worth a lot.

It is an embarrassment of gifts. She's sure there's enough pigs to feed a decent percentage of the village, and the decorative tapa, presented fully spread out in all their meticulous detail and fine craftsmanship, are almost breathtaking. The attendants bring out piles of gorgeous jewellery, lovingly polished shells softly clacking against each other as they separate each necklace or bracelet from the pile, and Moana's about ready to declare it too much when they begin bringing in the strange baskets, the ones that look like they're made of stone, though now that she sees them up close they're even stranger. There's no sign these were carved to form their current shape, and not only has she never seen this type of stone before she's certain this is mud that somehow hardened into beautifully smooth shapes with intricate decorations.

"Pottery," the orator explains once he sees their fascination. "Courtesy of our trade partners to the north. You could use them for storage instead of baskets, gourds, or even drinking nuts. Secure a bond with Motuloa, and your people will get more."

The crowd stares in awe at this invention, some people asking how long it took them to rot or crumble, some people debating how if they were made of mud how they could not just turn back into mud once wet again, and the visiting party smiles in relief. This is definitely promising.

Once it's clear the presents are all accounted for, Dad's orator cousin Fetuau announces the village will discuss the match for a couple of days, and slowly the grand _fale_ empties out, buzzing with excitement, to find a similarly excited crowd angling to see what the suitor's party presented, and then angling to see the suitor's party itself. Dad and Fetuau begin speaking with Prince Tuleimotu and the orator, Mom leads the visiting party to the _fale_ built specifically for guests and groups of visitors.

And Moana stays seated, watching everyone leave.

Everyone, incidentally, except Maui.

He sets his hook gently to one side, and soon enough she's joined by his huge, gentle presence beside her, his shoulder ready as it always is for her to literally lean on.

"So what happens now?" he says, his eyes on the pile of presents out in front but his attention all on her. "Do you say your piece right away or … ?" He trails off.

She huffs. "What, no more princess jokes?"

"Eh, that can come later," he shrugs. "Plus it kinda takes the fun out of it when you look like you're about to take a boat and disappear any second now."

She draws her knees up towards her chin, and just lets her hands fiddle with her hair and eyes wander up to the pile, glittering and lavish and disturbingly final. This was what was supposed to gain the favour of her and her village. It was a proposal, but more importantly, it was a bid. And what's more, these strangers could end up getting it.

She sighs, and lets her legs fold back down into a more formal sitting position, and takes her hands away from her hair.

"The council evaluates the gifts, the lineage of the suitor, and the value of the alliance. Tradition says the daughter of the chief should reject a suitor at least three times so we have more time to finish making the dowry. If the council says yes, I get to choose when we accept the proposal. If they say no, we ask them to never propose to me again," she says, as Maui frowns, trying to take it all in.

She continues before he makes another quip about how much her people loved making up new formalities.

"I'm going to be a female chief, Maui," she says. "Lineage will be easier if I only take one husband. They just wanna make sure I don't mess it up."

Maui winces.

"So no chance of taking a couple extra in case this one's a jerk?" he says. "Put 'em on a roster and just link lineage to whoever's most convenient?"

"No."

He pulls a face. "You girls have it rough."

"Tell me about it."

A pause, and then, "Wives, though? Or … whatever the term is for you guys?"

"Oh, as many as I want," she says. "Though … chiefs want lineage. I'm not going to get many daughters sent over."

She readjusts her position, and imagines herself welcoming endless new visiting parties, long after the first marriage. Endless piles of gifts. Endless speeches and negotiations. Long after fulfilling her duty and securing an alliance, long after putting her body through everything needed to give the village an heir. The thought is … not as comforting as Maui probably thinks it is.

"Anyway," she says. "The gender or the number isn't the issue here."

She focuses anew on the pile of presents, and tries not to think of Maui's concern suddenly set in her direction, boring through her even though it's clear he's trying too hard not to make it come off too obvious.

She almost wishes he'd just go back to teasing.

"You _are_ ready to get married, aren't you?" he says.

And she looks beyond the pile, and up towards the view.

The grand _fale_ , by design, has a strategic view of both the harbour and the village down below. It's a placement that, she reasoned, would give guests the best impression of their little village, and encourage them to keep coming back, maybe even eventually start settlements nearby. And now that she's looking out onto that view, seeing the village below hum with life and the ocean in the distance catch the sun's changing angles, she wonders if she also decided on this location for her, so that whenever she dealt with outsiders, she would always remember her duties to her people.

She tries not to sigh.

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, we've put this off long enough. This was always going to happen. I just need to get used to the idea of it not happening sometime in the distant future."

That doesn't seem to answer Maui's question completely, but there's nothing there he can contest, so he stretches out his legs, and lets himself lean back against his palms. "Look, you want a few pointers from someone who's had a bunch of successful marriages?"

She glances sidelong at him, and a smirk finds its way into her voice. "And countless failed ones?"

"I learned through experience!"

"Several lifetimes' worth of experience," she says. "Mostly failure."

"Meaning I know what I'm talking about! I am literally worth a small village of ancestors. Talking to me saves you, like, a hundred conversations with some really old people," he insists, and balks in offence as Mini Maui awards a point to her instead. "Oh, come on! You know I'm right!"

Mini Maui thinks about it, and then adds another point to Moana's score.

"Traitor."

Moana giggles, and despite everything that should annoy him about that Maui somehow manages to feel almost comforted.

"As I was saying." He spares a quick glare at Mini Maui before turning back to her. "Y'know, thousand years in isolation, your people are probably out of practice on the whole inter-village marriage thing. If this is just you all worried about marrying a stranger, how about you get to know the guy first?"

"Wow," she deadpans. "Didn't think of that."

"I'm serious!" Maui says. "Kid, you're just a little thrown because he's your first suitor and he's a bit of a surprise. But surprises can be good!" He nudges her. "You were a surprise. I wouldn't have wanted someone like you showing up to rescue me from that pile of pebbles. And now look."

"So you admit it," she says. "You admit that I rescued you."

Another point. She chuckles as Maui glares at his miniature and then glares further when she leans her Mini Maui shoulder tattoo to high-five his.

"Look, you have a few days while the council makes its decision, right?" he says. "And it's not like he's got anything else to do while he's here."

She huffs again, and slumps against his shoulder, because Mini Maui might not be awarding him anything right now, but he does have a point.

Besides. The prince seems nice. And she has to admit he doesn't look half bad. What harm could there be?

"Fine," she says. "But this is still really weird."

Maui's laughter rumbles through him, low and indescribably fond. "No one said being chief would be easy, Chosen One," he says, and then grins wide enough to show off the gap in his teeth, "or should I say, Princess?"

She really does smack him upside the head this time.

* * *

She blames her dad for all this. She could've had a much less complicated life just running the village and then handing over leadership to someone eligible when she was too tired to keep dealing with everyone's problems and apologising for Maui's latest prank gone wrong. Just set off on her first boat and live off the sea, stopping every once in a while to rest on the latest uninhabited paradise island.

But no. He just had to open his big stupid mouth at one of last year's trade meetings.

What happened before was business as planned. All the leaders and in some cases orators and heirs in place of their leaders discussed what resources they had and what resources they lacked. Her cousin Selia, current chief of Motunui, was expressing a particular need for more sails "now that we've lost our best weavers" (followed by Moana's discreet roll of the eyes and even more discreet pang of guilt) and she was about to bring up her island's abundance of pandanus palms and coconut trees when a different chief lamented a lack of weavers as well.

"My daughter's dowry, you see," he'd sighed. "It's hard to make sails when we're all preparing for her marriage. So many mats."

Dad piped up. "We have red feathers and fine mats if you can supply us some seeds and tapa."

"Extra from Moana's dowry?" another chief said.

Dad chuckled. "She'd have to get married first for that."

Causing the entire circle of leaders and representatives to erupt into gasps and murmurs.

"She's available?" the first chief said. "The Friend to Gods, Hero to All—your _heir_ , Tui—she's still available? Is that what you're saying?"

Moana huffed, and spoke up like he was asking her directly and not her father like she wasn't even there. "That's not really what we're here to discuss, Chief Le, but—"

"Yes," Dad said.

"Dad!"

Someone else joined in. "And she's looking?"

"Again, we can discuss my personal life after we've resolved the current issue, but—"

Dad butt in again. "She is."

And the noise became deafening as the chiefs and the token king of the meeting descended into yelling matches about their handsome young sons and comely young daughters, all also available, good sailors, kind to children, how many spouses can she take, what kind of gifts do you—

Selia, in a rare breach of propriety, sighed heavily and rolled his eyes at this derailment, and turned to his young daughter seated beside him to mutter about how this was the kind of nonsense he was teaching her to avoid doing when she becomes chief.

Moana could do little more than glare at her father, who shrugged helplessly and just asked, "What?"

* * *

Okay, so maybe her first attempts to talk to the mysterious suitor don't go so great. Maybe she went through all the trouble of putting together a small package of food as an apology for the punch earlier only to be greeted with an empty _fale_ and the too-late realisation he and his orator were probably taking questions from the council. And maybe now she's stuck standing here with no idea where he is, holding a cooling package of fish and looking increasingly pathetic as it becomes clear she's not just holding it for her.

This is ridiculous.

If the outcome of this match was all up to the council, doesn't that mean if this goes right she's going to have to get to know him whether she wants to or not? And he clearly didn't seem to be put off by the incident at the docks if he went ahead with all this trouble anyway. He did say he forgave her. So what was she doing?

She places the packet in a basket, and heads down to the shore.

The early afternoon isn't the kindest time of day here. The sun bears down hard on anyone unlucky enough to be out in the open, and the wind whips over the hills and scrambles, desperate, towards the sea, almost nipping at the ankles in an effort to push you off balance and send you tumbling downhill. Couple that with the cold season this time of year sending winds that also aimed to freeze your bones while continuously pummelling you into submission, and the heat of the sun and the chill of the wind were enough to send even the strongest of her people to the healers.

Luckily for her, though, the winds today are behaving.

Which is great, because she could use a little break right now.

She's about to head straight to her canoe when she notices the prince's messenger boat among the boat sheds instead of secured out on the docks, and through all her better impulses screaming at her to just leave it alone before she causes another potential war, she can't help thinking about taking this beauty out on a spin.

She may not be able to steal it, but it is tempting to at least climb on board and get a feel for the controls. Or even just touch those red details or beautiful inlays.

There has to be a way to blame Maui for these criminal tendencies.

Her fingers curl and uncurl along the surface of the small basket in her hands.

"Still need another look?"

Luckily, this time the punch lands on nothing but air.

She gasps anyway, babbling another apology as she spins to face the voice to find …

The prince.

Of course.

"Prince Tuleimotu!" she says, actively fighting the heat rising up from her chest to her cheeks. "I, uh, I was looking for you!"

He rubs at the bruise on his shoulder, a nasty darkened thing that looks like a poorly-executed exercise in tattoo blackwork, and she winces in sympathy, causing him to flash her a smile to show it's not so bad. He's not the best actor, but the smile is nice.

"Good thing I was standing at a safe distance, then."

No one ever did make it clear what the etiquette was on laughing or not laughing at a prince's levity. Moana swallows, and opens up the basket.

"What are—?" She coughs. "I thought you'd be with the council."

He doubles down on the smile of reassurance, but he really isn't the best actor. "They, uh," he says, "they're still trying to determine if I'm real. Your father recognised my orator as my father's. They trust him with their questions."

Okay. Not the best small talk question, then.

"Here, I—" Her fingers fumble at the basket opening, and the heat in her cheeks has wandered to her ears because she's just realised that she's feeding a prince from a lowly basket and will he pick up on that or— "Here," she stammers. "Little peace offering, for—" She gestures vaguely in the direction of his shoulder.

He's surprised, before he takes the package with both hands.

The fish is lukewarm by now, and it occurs to her that he might not be that familiar with their cooking methods here, but he's not exactly pulling a face at it. "Thanks," he says.

"It's not, uh, it's not what you might be used to, but the cooks are preparing for the feast tomorrow and … " She trails off.

"I ate boat food for nearly two months," he says. "This might as well be a whole pig and an entire flock of pigeons."

He takes it to the messenger boat, sitting cross-legged on the outrigger as he opens the banana leaf packet. She's about to leave when he looks up at her, and pats the vacant space beside him.

A prince? Eating next to someone of her rank? Was that a thing with his people?

"No, thanks," she says.

"Not gonna eat this if you don't."

"You're not gonna … It isn't … blasphemy or something with you?"

He balks. "Oh, right! The east!" he says. "Forgot how old-fashioned it gets here. Don't get me wrong, it's nice, kind of quaint."

She frowns.

Were they?

"It's fine," he says. "I won't tell."

She swallows, and she fights back the blush until it's at least back in her chest and very much not all over her face, and she sits.

The prince nods, pleased, and he holds up his end of the bargain.

Moana lets her legs swing from the edge of the outrigger, tries not to think about how close they are to each other, out here alone among the boats long after the fishermen had put their boats away for the morning and long before they needed to get back out again for sea urchins and squid.

The wind blows in hard from out past the hills.

"So what is it with you and my boat?" he says, before taking another bite.

"Funny way to talk about your messenger's vessel."

He swallows. "No," he says. "This is my boat. The bigger one's my dad's lesser voyaging canoes. This one's my usual."

She tries not to stare at him. His usual? He sailed? Even weirder, he sailed himself? A prince?

"Your usual?" she says. "You sail?"

He frowns. "Why wouldn't I?"

She shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "I guess … You're a prince. I figured you'd be a passenger."

And she's not looking at him, but she can feel that smile again, the one that lights up his face and makes his dark eyes sparkle with laughter.

"My people never banned voyaging, just voyaging too far out east, where the curse was," he says. "I grew up on the water. Sailed just about everywhere west of … what was your old island, again? Motunui?"

She nods.

"This is the boat I used for a lot of it," he says. "The king's fifth son. Second son of the fourth wife and eighth of Dad's sixteen kids." He stops eating for a second, oddly silent as the wind tries once again to knock her right into him, and the smile falters. "Lot of the promise of royalty, but you get lost in the shuffle," he says, and the smile is on again—reassuring, but fake. "Anyway. Least they let me sail wherever I wanted."

Could you express sympathy to a prince, tell him I'm sorry?

She forces her gaze back to the strong outrigger, to the intricate carvings along the prow.

"And they gave you a nice boat," she manages.

His posture softens, and he begins to wrap up the remains of his meal. "Yeah," he says, and turns to consider what she could almost swear are the same parts of the boat she's also looking at. "We've been through a lot, this boat and I, seen places you wouldn't imagine. Giant pieces of land, too big to be called islands. Places that get even colder than the tradewinds season. People who look nothing like us," he says. "Helps that she's the fastest canoe in all the great ocean."

She's not sure what it is that stirs in her, her natural willingness to meet a challenge, the nerves that had been building up since that punch on the docks, or something else, this strange need to stop being so obvious about noticing the prince beside her, but whatever it is it brings a puff to her chest and a smirk to her voice.

"Wellllll," she says, and her eyebrows climb up her forehead as face splits into her most innocent and winning smile, "mine's faster."

* * *

Anyone else and even just the idea of the daughter of the chief alone in a boatyard with a handsome prince could've led to some risky behaviour, possibly involving a few discreet inter-village meetings and a bribed orator on the final day of the wedding.

Not that they were wrong to worry about that sort of risky behaviour coming from Moana.

It was just that her definition of "risky" was broad enough that the more obvious options were a pretty low priority.

She braces against the blast of cold from up past the hills, and trims her sail to better catch the wind.

Oh, she is going to get in so much trouble for this.

Two royals, completely unsupervised, manning a vessel each, alone, with the aim to go at their full speeds around a harbour with a couple of rocky shores and the occasional sprinkle of hidden shallows and sandbars. One of them, a prince of an actual kingdom, could very well just be lying about being a lifelong wayfinder. The other, the sole heir to her village's chiefdom, has been itching to do some real sailing after months of caution and cyclones. And both of them just happened to want to take a little spin just as the peak trading season approaches, and right as a few trading vessels start to arrive with vital supplies for the village. Besides the millions of ways this could go wrong, there is no possible way this could go wrong.

The route is straightforward, and not so far that one wouldn't be able to rescue the other and get them back on land before long. Push out from the boatyard and head towards Motutapu, the island around the mouth of the harbour. Round the island, circle around the what she liked to call the hook barb where the island curls in on the harbour, head past the smaller island Motuiti, back to the sandy shores of the boatyard. First back to the sheds wins bragging rights over whose boat is faster.

He's been sailing before he could walk, he claims. She learned later in life but her education came from navigating much more dangerous environments, plus she knows this entire island by heart. Experience versus familiarity of the area. It's a fair fight, or it should be.

So how in the world is he this far ahead?

He must've been dying the whole time over here, his boats all slow and loaded with people and presents. Without them, and alone, he's one with the wind and sea, standing strong amongst the whip of the winds and weaving through the different terrains and wave patterns with only the slightest hint of surprise.

Okay, maybe he wasn't just making up the whole lifelong voyager thing. She'd be impressed if she weren't so consumed by the need to win.

She cuts in front of a trading vessel heading in towards the harbour, barely managing to yell a hurried apology as she leaves a panicked crew of traders in her wake before the winds seem to choose that exact moment to pick back up, filling her sail and propelling her forward. It's just the boost she needs to take advantage and catch up.

He's making a sharp turn along the inside of the barb as she passes him by, and he's so shocked at the recovery he's just about ready to let go of his boom and fall.

Much better.

She grins, winking as her boat overtakes his. "Your Highness."

His cries and curses of surprise and despair are sweet and gentle music to her ears.

It's not much further now, just need to pass the little island and it's back to the sheds. The winds are tricky in the barb, heading in from the hills and towards the ocean and bouncing every which way as they hit a solid ridge of more hill on the way out. And they are especially difficult when you're trying everything you can to move in a direction completely different to the prevailing direction of the winds. It's everything in her deceptively strong body just to keep the boat from tipping, and she's doing great until—

A wink, this time thrown in her direction, before his boat once again pulls up ahead. "Chosen One."

Son of a—!

She growls, planting her feet on her deck and straining to make use of every bit of wind she can catch. Motuiti and its distinctive clean almost conical shape almost fills her vision, and she glances over to see which way he turns.

It's deeper, friendlier waters away from the shore, and a narrow passage with a sandbar on the other side, barely submerged and just beginning to threaten to reveal itself. It would be an obvious choice, if the safer route didn't happen to take nearly twice the time the riskier one did. He wouldn't be wise to not to go the safer way, but he wouldn't be smart not to take the narrower pass.

His eyes meet hers, wide with alarm when he realises she's staying her course, before he turns towards the darker waters.

She grins.

There's a reason she has a reputation for risk.

The narrower passage is tricky but familiar, and she manages to both keep her balance and navigate the obstacles with ease, passing over the more submerged rocks and bits of sandbar in a way that only years of hard-won experience with the topography of this harbour could've taught her. It's a callus-inducing dance of patience and finesse, and almost before she realises it the passage ends and she emerges out into the darker waters, victorious and whole, the boatyard maddenly close and almost brilliant with the glow of imminent victory.

She checks back over to find him scrambling to catch back up, and it's a warm glow in her heart to see him so completely and utterly humbled by a mere daughter of the chief.

The winds choose just that moment to slow. Her face falls at the sight of the hook and spiral of her sail beginning to droop, and the only thing keeping her from cursing whichever god happens to be looking down on her is the fact that at least the prince is affected, as well.

She takes her oar in her hands, and begins to paddle.

The great thing about being a voyager and serving as basically Maui's partner during those adventures in Motunui was that it gave her arms a lot of work, both for sailing for their lives to outrun the latest Lalotai monster, and for fighting off those monsters on the occasion they just couldn't run. After they cleared the east of the straggling monsters of the deep and she began to focus on voyaging and trade, the work of just building a village felt downright tame by comparison.

She wonders if that's what's helping him catch up, that she hasn't exactly been in peak monster fighting condition since the launch now that there weren't that many monsters to fight.

He's strong, almost as strong as her, and try as she might his paddling is good enough that he's beginning to catch up, his arms flexing and his skin beginning to shine with sweat. It'd be attractive if it didn't also signal her failure. She paddles harder, but by the time the next swoop of wind rushes down from past the hills to fill her sail again he's uncomfortably close to catching up.

She almost does actually curse the gods then, or she would, if she didn't decide to focus harder on just sailing her heart out.

Conditions being what they are it turns out she is the better sailor, reading the waves and dodging the obstacles better than someone whose years of expertise came from mostly peaceful waters, free of monsters and epic quests. It would be so easy to take what she can and make that last little stretch back to the boatyard, and she grins up at the faithful hook and spiral of her sail almost pointing the way forward onto victory.

And then she looks back at him.

More specifically, the shoulder she injured earlier that day.

He's wincing, and she almost hisses in sympathy when his face scrunches up just trying to keep his canoe on course.

This wasn't fair. This can't have been a fair fight.

So she loosens her hold on her controls, and her sail just about deflates. She hopes her performance of a slipped rope is convincing enough. The rogue boom helps sell it.

He zooms past, none the wiser.

And she has to admit, this may have been her idea but the defeat still stings.

She sinks gently into the sand as she pushes her boat back up the ramps, well-practised diplomatic smile and gracious tone of voice all ready and raring for deployment, when his hands appear beside hers and he helps her bring her boat back to its shed.

There are no words spoken as they put their canoes away, barely more than the faintest glances as they put themselves back together, like the breathless race of pride and impulse never happened. And just as she's about to excuse herself and find some duty or other that she'd probably neglected during the race, there's that smooth, dark voice, slipping softly between her thoughts.

"So. I've never had a village tour like _that_ before," he says, and there's that smile that just lights up his face.

Protocols, no protocols, no one ever did make them clear.

But right now she doesn't care.

Right now she actually does laugh.

* * *

It doesn't take long at all for the council to come to a conclusion.

Barely two days of she and her parents and the council getting to know the visiting party and consulting with the rest of the village, and before she knows it she's called into the council _fale_ to learn if her very first suitor is the one she ends up marrying.

It's funny. She hasn't been this jittery about facing the council since her disastrous first time leading the proceedings. Now she feels like she's back there, sixteen again, younger and smaller and unreasonably dependent on their approval.

And it's weird. She also hasn't been this … excited about a summons from the council since then, either.

It's Maui, sitting among the chief's extended family, who shoots her a reassuring smile from the crowd. It's Mom, sitting near the centre of the council, who gestures for her to straighten up. And it's Dad, politely asking his orator cousin Fetuau to hold off on the announcement, who gives the final word.

The council has verified the suitor's eligibility. They know his orator from the inter-village trade conference as the king's orator. Maui, the one among them who actually possesses the power of flight, verified himself that the prince is who he says he is, and the king really did send him here to secure a bond between the two societies. He has no titles to conflict with her duties as the village's next chief, he has no spouses to create a problem with lineage, there have been no reports of any violence or abuse from him. Furthermore, his proposal gifts, though not exactly standard for Moana's people, were more than generously sufficient.

They approve.

And it is up to Moana to decide how many more proposals he must make until they announce the start of the actual marriage ceremonies, or indeed if she wants him to come back at all. She has today and tomorrow to think over the match and give her decision to the orator.

She nods, and the butterflies in her stomach barely have time to have a little flutter before they're overshadowed by the heat beginning to rise to her cheeks.

She's getting married.

Her breathing is growing shallower and her head's still trying to understand what just happened. Two days ago her biggest worry was getting their end of the trade goods done and organising the space for the unloaded imports. And now that just seems so distant, so lost in the fog.

She's getting married.

She's getting _married_.

And truth be told, and just to herself, she'd be lying if she said that behind all the shock and existential terror, there wasn't even just the quietest, littlest thrill at the news.

* * *

Clearing land and building footpaths isn't exactly the most glamorous task for Fa'anui's resident demigod, but while it's not the most necessary thing it's still useful, especially in a place as hilly as this. Besides, she gets the feeling Maui likes it, having a task simple and repetitive enough that he can focus more on the conversation at hand rather than whatever he's actually supposed to be working on.

On other days this sort of thing would be a nice diversion for the both of them, a way to improve the village while getting some increasingly rare time to just hang out. Today, however, she's barely had an hour to process that she may have to start preparing to bring a whole other person into her life, and it's unclear if she wants to talk about it, or if she wants to take a moment and just let it digest a little more.

Either way, she's glad he's here.

"How did you ever build on these slopes without me?" he grunts, drawing his hook away from its position firmly wedged into the side of the hill so the bit he carved out crumbles onto a now almost flat surface. "Construction must've involved a few tumbles."

Moana continues sweeping what debris there is on the patch into manageable piles. "You have no idea."

"Well good thing you got me now," he grins, and continues slicing his way through the side of the hill. "All in a day's work for Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero to All," he says, and steps aside to let the newest piece of hill crumble safely in front of them. "You're welcome."

Moana rolls her eyes, smiling fondly at Mini Maui's proud little bow and silent applause, barely visible under the cake of dirt and dust building on Maui's skin.

"If you start singing," Moana says, "I'm gonna throw up."

He's too busy looking at the path ahead to face her, but she can just about feel the pout in his voice. "Aw, even song number 344?"

"Which one was that again?"

"The patter song with the big freeze finish."

"Then especially song number 344," she sniffs.

He humphs, and kicks away a stray pebble like a petulant child. "You've gotten less fun in your old age, you know that?" he says. "I blame the Mini Maui tattoo. Bet yours is just a big a killjoy as mine."

"Hey, I'll have you know I'm very fun," Moana says. "Extremely fun. The parties do not start until Moana arrives." She wipes away some of the sweat from her face, not that it would do much good, since she's filthy with sweat and dust to the point where she's glad she insisted on simple disposable woven leaf clothing for the task today, but it does help her mouth feel less … grainy, for lack of a better word.

Maui readjusts his hair bun. "Pfft, sure, Chief."

"I am!" she says. "C'mon, did you not see that epic boat race the other day?"

He thinks about it, before he scoffs. "What, that shameless display?"

What?

Moana frowns. "Shameless?"

Maui's hook, raised to once again carve into the side of the hill, lowers, and he turns to face her instead, leaning against the hook like it lent him any real look of authority instead of just making him look tired. "Kid," he says, "you _cannot_ have thought that was you sailing with your A-game."

"Excuse me?" she says. "Okay, maybe cyclone season forced us off the sea for a bit, but—"

"Oh, that wasn't cyclone season," he smirks. "You after cyclone season could outsail all these village boys, royalty or no royalty. Heck, you've sailed through an actual cyclone or two."

She winces. "Not my best call," she says. "Not doing that again."

"But you did it," Maui says, and beneath the cake of soil and greenery all over his face, she can still make out that infuriating eyebrow raised to ridiculous heights. "And you held onto your ropes the whole time."

He knows. He always knows. And she both loves him and hates him for always somehow knowing when she needs to talk.

He shakes his head, and slumps into a sitting position along the edge of the new road, overlooking the harbour.

She joins him.

"Pretty basic mistake back there, Curly," Maui says. "I know I taught you better than that."

She swallows. "You did."

"And I know you can't act to save your life."

"Hey."

His laugh is small, stifled by the soil in the air and on the ground and just everywhere, but still undeniably fond. "Look, I get it, I get it, he's cute, and he's a prince, and he's got that adventurer spirit," he says. "You wanted to get to know him, and you wanted to be nice to him, just like you want to be nice to everyone. Lucky for you he just happens to be one of those poor blessed souls who doesn't notice when you let him win."

It's a good thing they're both covered in this gross layer of soil and sweat, a layer just thick enough that even Maui's giant hawk form probably couldn't spot the redness climbing up her face.

Maui grins. "I was a dad, remember?" he says. "I know the beginnings of a crush when I see one."

Now she's really grateful for the layer of dirt.

"I don't have a crush on him," she says.

"And I haven't thought about stealing Pua and letting him live his final years as some sort of tiny pig king," he says, and turns his attention back to the village, and to the magnificent view of the harbour, Motutapu off in the distance. "Look, we're family now, and I gotta say," he says, "this letting him win stuff? Not a great way to start a long-term thing. Don't be afraid to let him know how awesome you are, kid! He's gonna have to get used to you being awesome, and he's gonna have to love it, not be scared off by it."

She coughs some of the ever-present little bits of soil that have somehow find a way into her mouth. "Who said I was afraid of scaring him off?" she says. "I just … didn't think it was a fair fight, him and his shoulder."

"That thing?" Maui says. "You've sailed with worse. All things considered, so did he, probably. That's just life as a voyager. He knew how to handle it."

She frowns. She hates it when he's right.

"So, what," she says, "you're saying don't marry him. Over a single boat race. After all this time nudging me towards him, you're saying I should ask the council to call it off."

"I'm saying don't marry him right away _because_ of a single boat race," he says, and his eyes revisit an old memory, just for a second.

He nudges her. "Thousands of years of failed marriages, I believe you said."

It wasn't, but she rolls her eyes, and nudges him back.

The council approved, and if she were honest so did she, probably. Legitimate claim, no problems with titles or lineage or violence, and his ties to Motuloa could really help out the village. It would be so tempting to just ask Fetuau to announce a yes when they gave their decision. After all, if this was inevitable, what was the point in putting it off?

The village stretches out before them, quietly beginning to thrive. It's like watching a bare plot of land grow into a bounty of food. Not so long ago they were in humble woven shelters or living in their boats as they cleared land and gathered the materials for buildings. Now they were comfortable, and happy, with just about every need becoming provided for as they opened up to trade with other villages. Her people trusted her to make the right decisions, and it's up to her to keep making them.

Even though she's not sure what this one is going to be just yet.

"I'm thinking three more proposals," Maui says, just as the wind from past the hills begins to pick back up. "Really milk 'em for all they got. Plus it'll give you time to get to know each other before it's all official."

She giggles. "Maui."

"What? He's a prince!" Maui says. "Yeah, a minor one, but his daddy the king wants an alliance and if it means giving one of the least important kids whatever he needs to win you over—"

"Ew, you make me sound like a trade good."

"To be fair, he's one, too," he says, and then winks, "Princess."

She groans. "Not a princess."

"Not yet, you aren't."

She pulls a face, mostly at the idea of Maui getting to call her that for the rest of her life.

And while she's distracted he takes his dusty, dirty hands and ruffles her equally filthy hair.

* * *

In the days since his arrival the prince makes it a habit to eat with her, both during the welcoming feasts when he first landed and during the smaller meals afterwards. Even during those times she had to literally wait on him as the guest of honour, he'd find a way to make her at least a part of the conversation. For a guest, it was … odd. Someone less generous might even call it uncomfortable. But maybe this is the sort of thing they missed out on knowing about during their time in isolation. He did say they were old-fashioned.

Once she gets herself used to it it's quiet, and it's companionable, or it is before the council's decision.

If he notices something he very wisely doesn't bring it up directly, just as she doesn't bring up how he's growing less smooth and sure of himself the more days there are between the proposal and the formal announcement.

She wasted yesterday just getting used to the idea and talking to Maui. She's not going to waste today.

She's just finished another meeting on the current progress of the _malae_ construction when she spots him heading out from around the boatyard, a woven leaf pouch in one hand. When she finally catches up to him she's overcome with the need to suggest something—a walking tour of the harbour, an excuse to mend some sails, another quiet meal at the boatyard—when he says he was looking for her anyway and opens the pouch to reveal two small packets of food, still fresh from the fishermen's cooking _fale_.

"The fishermen just cooked their share," he says, holding one of the packets towards her. "They said you'd like some of the extra."

She's surprised, before she takes it with both hands.

"Thanks," she says.

He shrugs, casually as he can.

"Awful lot of flies this time of day, though," he says. "Someone like the daughter of the chief would probably want to eat somewhere more peaceful."

His head gestures momentarily out towards the harbour, and she quirks an eyebrow.

"What did you have in mind?"

* * *

The prince's boat is as fast as it is beautiful, and that's saying a lot.

She's seen it in action before, of course, but it's another thing to actually be on the vessel, watching the boatyard shrink into the distance as the winds blow in from out beyond the hills, the sea misting onto her face.

She lets herself close her eyes, and just take a breath of the salty, abrasive air. The wind whips through the ornate sail, pushing the canoe onwards to slice through the calm waters, and the sound is not unlike the tinkling of shell jewellery swaying gently in the distance.

It's bliss.

And she's not the only one who thinks so.

When she blinks herself back to the land of sight she looks up to see the prince staring up and out towards the horizon, a faraway look on his face, before he looks back down at her.

"Not hungry?" he says, trimming the sails before the canoe begins to slow to a halt.

She shakes her head, and pats at a nicely dry section of deck beside her.

"Not gonna eat if you don't," she says, and there's that laughter back in his eyes.

He secures his oar, and moves to join her.

All around them is the harbour, safe and familiar, bustling with activity as the peak trade season begins to really take hold. But he's stopped in a quieter area near the boatyard, safe in the shadow of Motuiti to shield them from the harsher winds. She takes another look around, to find the beautiful deep blue waters of the safe route. It's tempting to ask for another sail around the harbour, this time something leisurely and quiet—an actual tour of the village, with her at the controls.

Beside her he opens his packet of fish, a welcome bit of warmth in the cold of the tradewinds.

She does the same, and the question gently occurs to her if he suggested this meal in the first place because he noticed she was too busy to eat in the morning.

She should probably say something.

"You're quiet today."

Close enough.

He swallows his bite of fish. "You were daydreaming again," he says, "and I'm within punching distance."

Her Mini Maui tattoo may not be sentient, but she can swear she can feel it awarding him a point.

The bruise on his shoulder is nearly gone now, a little sickly green and yellow instead of an uneven purple. She hadn't even noticed so much as a flinch all day. Still, it'd be awkward not to say anything.

"Sorry," she says, again.

"I was joking," he says. "Been on boats all my life. I've sailed with worse."

And now, a point for Maui.

The prince shrugs, blissfully unaware.

"Your people chose well," he says. "For the village, I mean. You were blessed to find such a beautiful harbour."

She smiles. "Thanks," she says. "We try."

"It shows," he says. "And I should say, it's not often I see royalty do the sort of work you do."

She peels back more of her fish's skin, separates a bit more meat from the bones.

"And what did you see other royals do?" she says.

He shakes his head. "Royal stuff," he says. "Big decisions, land titles, feasts and ceremonies if the need came about. Same as you. But I'm not sure many of them would've liked talking to the lower ranks or speaking without an orator, never mind being told they look like they know how to grow their own food."

He goes on as she takes it in, marvelling at the differences in the cultures. He's seen so many, and learned a bunch of things the hard way, but the stories. All the different types of food, all the different styles of dress. There were entire cultures even Maui had never mentioned to her, at least not in detail, groups of people who looked so different from them she had a hard time even imagining it.

She'd thought she'd seen a good part of the world when Motunui reopened its waters and began to trade with its neighbours, but apparently the vast distances of ocean she'd sailed across was just a fraction of what was out there.

Was this what her people had missed out on, after so long shutting themselves off from the rest of the world?

What else could he teach her?

"So why Fa'anui?" she says. "Why come all the way here, where almost no one lives?"

He looks straight past her, past the mouth of the harbour and onto the horizon, and takes in the soft sway of the boat against the calm waters.

"I'm a voyager," he says. "And the east is finally safe enough to explore."

She shivers, and tries to rub at her arms like it would actually make the goosebumps disappear.

She wants to blame it on the cold of the east winds, the freezing blast of the wind coming down from past the hills.

"No, really," she says. "You said your dad sent you."

His gaze drops from the horizon, and the smile he puts on is fake.

He goes quiet for a while, taking his time with his bite of fish before he swallows and comes to some sort of decision.

"You're not the first person I've proposed to," he says, and adds, upon her instant reaction to nearly choke on her fish, "Not that I'm already married!"

She relaxes, and both the food and the news become easier to swallow.

"No, it's—" He stops. He's wincing, hurting from some invisible old wound, like one of those old people who'd complain about their old knee injury when the weather got particularly chilly. It takes him looking up at his sail and not towards her before he can talk again. "My father sent me to all these distant lands to marry me off and secure some connections. Actual princesses sometimes," he says. "I tried. I was nice to them. I got the best proposal gifts appropriate to each place's customs. But, princesses, you know. They all want chiefs. They all had offers from actual leaders. No one wants one of the youngest sons, from one of the most junior wives, someone who won't even be in charge of his own land."

She makes sure to actually swallow this current bite.

"So he sent you here," she says, "where that doesn't matter, because I'm the one who's going to be chief."

His head drops, and his posture droops, and the confident young prince is gone, replaced by a son who just wants to please his father. "Yeah."

The boat sways gently in the calm waters, and in the distance the sound of birds off in the lands surrounding them.

Well. At least he's honest.

She packs away the remains of her meal, and rinses her hands with one of those fancy pottery things from his hold.

"Is that a problem?" he says, as he gets up and does the same.

She watches as he alternates hands to pour water over the other, slowly rinsing until he's free of fish. "No," she says. "I think that's actually a plus."

He chuckles as he pours the gourd's—the pot's—contents overboard. "Don't get my hopes up."

"Who says I am?" She raises an eyebrow. "You're the one who's only getting married because his people want him to."

"And you're not?" he says.

She swears she can feel him getting another point.

He sits back down beside her, his toes curled and his hands folded on his lap. "Tell you what, though," he says. "Far as arranged matches go, this isn't so bad."

She wants to say the feeling's mutual, that the thought of the distant future happening now doesn't completely terrify her now that she knows what she could get. What she ends up saying, after a moment being horrified at the angry blush blooming across her face and another moment trying to remember what words are, is that he'll find out about that tomorrow, after the morning meal.

"Grand _fale_ , if your orator didn't inform you yet," she says. "I give my decision to our orator, he lets you know what happens next."

He stares. "You get the final word?"

"It's how we do things here," she shrugs, and adds, "and it helps that I saved the world."

He rolls his eyes. "Ah yes, the great Moana, originally of Motunui," he intones with all the grand, serious air of the world's most important orator. "Saviour of Wayfinding, Restorer of the Heart, Friend to Gods."

"Not my titles," she says.

He raises his eyebrows. "But still true."

Another point.

She shakes her head.

"Hey, five years and it's still all anyone's talking about. The new titles were bound to happen." He looks back out towards the horizon beyond the boats coming in and out of the harbour. "But isn't it still weird to be known as the Chosen One? I mean, what would you even be Chosen to do now that you've finished your mission?" he says. "Wouldn't you just be Moana now?"

She scoffs. "I don't call myself the Chosen One," she says. "And I don't ask them to call me that."

"C'mon, doesn't it get old, though?" he says. "Don't you want to build on that? Don't you want to, I don't know, keep exploring?"

"Um, I've explored plenty, thank you very much," she says. "Maui and I were the first ones in the east in like a thousand years, remember? Those monsters you were forbidden to go anywhere near? We were the ones who got rid of them."

Hey, Maui did say she needed to stop hiding her awesomeness.

"Besides," she says, "there are over a hundred islands here in the Hook Islands. Volcanoes, atolls, caves, coral reefs, forests— _new_ forests! These are new islands, barely as old as this village! Even Maui hasn't explored them all! There's so much to find just here."

And she shivers again, and this time it's not clear if it's just the wind.

"But building a new village is hard," she says. "We've been here nearly three years now and there's still so much work to do. My focus needs to be here, at least until everything's running smoothly."

Somehow he's gone from looking out into the distance to shifting his attention wholly to her, the horizon forgotten for now as something about her changes in his eyes.

"And it'll be my job to try to sneak you away sometimes?"

She considers it, and then she laughs. "Among other things."

The boat is still, she knows, and the winds while decent aren't exactly steady enough to support another race, but he's gaming her now, an infuriating smirk as his questions continue, goading her on. She can't be stopping now. She can't be ready to give up the voyager life this early and stay at home.

"And after the village is done?" he says. "After you've made a steady stream of supplies and everyone is provided for. What happens when the workload slows?"

As tempting as it is to meet the challenge and continue this little game, she breaks the stare, and lets her eyes wander to what of the village she can see from here.

"Who says it'll slow?" she says.

She gets up to her feet, and just lets herself lean against the slanted mast, the main areas of the village just visible from this distance. "Just look at this harbour."

He does.

She shakes her head, and offers him a hand to help him up. "No, look."

His callused hand meets her own, and he stands behind her to see the village as she does.

The heat in her face is only the sun, she insists. The hairs rising up all over her arms are only the wind.

She clears her throat, and guides his hand across various parts of the harbour.

"There," she says, "our royal _malae_."

Down near the docks. "A second hall for the trade goods, so we separate the exports from the imports."

The docks themselves. "More posts for the larger vessels."

Back out, towards the hills. "Another quarry, this time for limestone. And a secondary village with its own lesser chiefs."

And down towards the valleys and plains. "Taro, breadfruit, coconut, more of the staples, for everyone already here."

She lets go.

"This village is going to welcome voyagers from everywhere," she says. "And we're going to encourage other people to voyage, too. I want the villages to really start talking again. I want _this_ village to be an example of why we need to voyage again. And I can't wait to welcome everyone, from everywhere, when they visit our shores."

She sighs, and wills herself calmer.

"And yeah," she says. The puff in her chest and the pride in her heart step down for now, and she's admitting an innocent little guilty pleasure, and gathering her hair in her hands. "Maybe there'll be the occasional exploratory mission to the other Hook Islands. For resource purposes. Officially."

His breath brushes against the back of her head as he lets out a huff of amusement.

He's close, she realises, closer than is probably necessary for purely leadership-related talk. She could move, keep her gaze low and her eyes averted, but from the blood rushing to her head and the sound of her heart in her ears, she could probably assume that's not the first thing she wants to do right now.

Her voice is caught somewhere between shaky and laughing when she manages to choke out, "What?"

"I think I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about," he says.

She brings her hands away from her hair. "The fuss?"

"The girl who saved the world," he says, walking out from behind to lean against his boom, facing her, looking at her like he's finally found something. "The one who rescued the demigod Maui and brought voyaging back to the east. I wondered why everyone's so eager to ally with you, when there are so many kingdoms and villages out there, but hearing you talk about your village … "

Breathe. She has to remind herself to breathe.

"And here I thought my reputation could've told you that sooner."

There's the laughter again, shining in his deep set eyes, and something else now, something she has the feeling is probably mirrored in her own.

"You're witty," he says.

"And you like to state the obvious."

He's laughing, and it's like a game, or another boat race, with them finding a twisted joy in outdoing the other. But this time she makes sure to hold firm, no more pity wins. He's a know-it-all but he's never faced off against someone like her, and he knows it.

The callused hand that had brushed so gently against her own begins to make its way across the small of her back. It's just as gentle, almost shy, and when her breath hitches and she dares to look up, it draws her just that little bit closer.

Oh, he's cheating. He can't think of any more barbs to trade with her, so he's resorting to this.

It's a dirty trick, but then again, they never did establish the rules.

She knows how kissing works in theory. It's something done in private, much less benign than the _hongi_ , but people talk, and the idea of it in principle isn't exactly scandalous.

Nothing could've prepared her for how it feels.

One minute she's looking down, trying to avert his gaze and push his hand away from her back before he gets her into trouble. She's so distracted there's barely any time to register his other hand tilting up her chin and him moving in to close the height difference when suddenly she finds herself experiencing something … new.

It's a shock at first, something that makes her freeze. It's a fall into a forest river, a blast of wind from the very north of her wind compass. It's something that her years of fighting say she needs to fight back. But she's surprised he doesn't just get another punch, and alarmed to find herself tensed, nearly shivering, and just about ready to break away and gasp for breath, but as soon as her hand comes up to push him away he holds her closer, all warm and soft and …

Oh.

And then it's like something switches, a sail shunted to better catch the wind. Her eyes flutter shut, and the shock has become a thrill, a tiny little death-defying quest that ends with her on fire as it takes her breath away, only for her to come out the other end of it mere seconds later, alive, and whole, and then diving back in to do it all over again.

Well. She does have a reputation for risk.

It's more of a relief than it should be when he gently steers them back into safer waters.

When he pulls away he's breathless, drinking in the sight of her, and it looks like he's about to say something when instead he moves further away, his hand barely brushing against the small of her back as he makes his way towards the controls.

She fights back the last remaining sparks still smouldering inside of her, dangerously ready to reignite at any moment, and takes a nice deep almost shuddering breath.

Well, that was … a surprise.

This must mean she likes him, right? That he's the one she's going to end up saying yes to? He wouldn't have done that if he hadn't noticed something. He's seen so much more than her, been to so many more places and met so many more people. Did he see something she didn't? Did he notice she wanted this before she did?

He takes his oar back in hand, and unfurls the sail.

The canoe moves now, from out of the shadow of the small harbour island and back towards the boatyard. She's grateful for the return of the chill of the east winds, all the better for killing off the last of the little sparks threatening to make this courtship a lot more complicated.

He's still looking at her, still taking in the sight of her like they're back on the docks and he still can't quite believe she's real. It's tender, almost worshipful. And it shouldn't be enough to drown out any lingering doubts, but she can swear she can just about feel herself melt.

She blushes, and has to sit and face away before she does something she regrets.

"I'm glad my dad sent me here," he says, softly, disbelieving.

And right now, she's not exactly inclined to disagree.

* * *

She finds her mom back home, helping Pua back in through the entrance. He's old now, and at about thirteen probably the oldest pig she's ever heard of. The past few years he'd started slowing, and more and more he's transitioned to staying inside and napping whenever possible. It's a small relief just to know he'd just been out on the grass.

Maybe Maui should've taken him to live as a tiny pig king.

Mom is praising him for doing so well, stroking him across the head when Moana approaches.

"Mom?" she says.

She turns, sighing in relief at the sight of her. "Moana," she breathes. "Oh, your father said you went off somewhere after the morning meetings and I was so worried!"

Moana winces. It's never the best feeling to know she's made Mom think she'd disappeared.

"I was … " she says.

What could she even say that wouldn't make this worse? It's fine, Mom, I was alone, unsupervised, with a man I only met four days ago? He kind of stole my first kiss and now that I think about it I wouldn't be surprised if he asked us to run off together? But the Ocean was there, so there's nothing to worry about?

Yeah, no, she's got enough on her mind.

"I was telling Prince Tuleimotu how the announcement ceremony was going to go," she says.

Which was technically true.

But Mom's not Dad. She doesn't believe well-rehearsed lies and well-conceived half-truths. Moana can never hide anything from her, and Dad can barely even hide an anniversary present without her finding out. Mom is nosy, and observant, and uncannily insightful, and she hides it well with her gentle demeanour and genuinely kind smiles. Moana may have been able to convince everyone else she had gotten over her "ocean problem" every time she dove back into the joys of chiefly duties, but it was always Mom who'd know when to keep an extra vigilant eye on the boats.

She's not fooled today, either.

"Among other things?" Mom says.

It was worth a shot.

Moana sighs. "Among other things."

She sinks down to sit at the fale entrance. She came for a talk, she might as well get comfortable.

Mom shakes her head and joins her, Pua gently trotting behind to curl up happily between the two.

"No boat races this time," Mom says. "I'm guessing you two wanted some time alone to talk before the big announcement."

Moana hated her people's gossip problem sometimes, she really did.

"That's all we did, I swear," Moana says. "He got us some food from the fishermen. There were flies on shore. He wanted to eat somewhere without them."

Mom analyses her for a moment in that eerie uncanny way that always felt like she had actual powers, and nods.

"All right, I believe you," she says. "But Moana, you need to understand, we know that you like each other, but nothing's official yet. Then all of a sudden you two just leave without telling anyone where you're going and sail off together on his boat? Your dad and I were this close to sending Maui after you."

It shouldn't hurt to hear her mom saying those words, that they were actually worried she would just abandon the people she loves and the village she worked so hard to build, all for the chance to indulge in a sweet smile and a pair of deep set eyes a little earlier than planned. Sure, he's handsome, and charming, and she's still buzzing from the thrill of that kiss, but to think that was more important than her people? To think she'd gladly take the promise of endless voyaging at the cost of her village's well-being?

There is a harsh, disciplined part herself that reminds her she spent her entire childhood and a good part of her teenage years actively trying to sail away. She shouldn't be surprised, it says, that sometimes they'd still fear she'd actually go through with it and leave for good.

But that doesn't ease the sting. She's not that person anymore. She always came back. She always comes back. Mom of all people should know that.

"Mom, I wouldn't just leave," Moana says. "You all said he was good enough to marry me. The council said he wasn't violent or anything. I just wanted to get to know him, just like you and dad and Gramma and everyone else got to know your matches before you got married."

Whatever edge there might have been in her mother's voice, whatever anger borne out of understandable fears was starting to emerge, it's gone now. Mom may have been relentless about finding the truth but that never meant she liked to gloat when she found it.

She's understanding, almost sad, when her fingers curl around Moana's and she says, "But that's not how traditional royal marriages work. Especially when it comes to outside villages. We can't just have every suitor and their party live here for a few months while you choose between them. That's why we have these proposals."

And Moana wishes she weren't right.

"With your grandparents, with your father and I," she says, "we were only close because our village was all we had. We had no choice but to see them every day."

"But it's how we've done things the last few hundred years," Moana says. "Wouldn't _that_ count as traditional now?"

"Moana—"

Mom stops, and she frowns like there's an answer in there but for the life of her it's found a way to escape, leaving her frustrated and wanting.

She gives up.

"Do you still want a traditional royal wedding?" she says. "Were you serious when we said we should bring those back?"

Moana balks. "Of course I was!"

"And what about now?" Mom says. "You were seventeen when you said that. It's been years. Do you still want one?"

Yes, her mind screams. That hasn't changed. I was serious about bringing back our old customs and I am prepared to do what it takes to revive the ones we can revive.

It's simple enough to think, it's literally the first thing that comes to mind, so why isn't her mouth moving?

Mom shuffles closer, gently nudging Pua awake so he can move to rest his head on the outside of Sina's lap rather than in between mother and daughter, and it's more of a relief than it really should be to feel her mother's arms softly wrapping around her, breathe in the last remaining bits of scent from the flowers in her headdress. Mom hugs with a little squeeze before she relaxes. "Oh, my little minnow," she breathes, tinges of pity and bemused fondness for her naive child. "Oh, you like him, don't you? You actually like him."

"Mom—"

There's another squeeze, before she breaks away.

"I've heard of these before," Mom says. "These people who meet and they just know, like they're in some sort of legend."

There goes her traitor face again, reddening for all the world to see. She wonders if this is how Maui feels towards Mini Maui. She wonders how he hasn't just removed him yet.

"It's not like that," she says, fixing up her clothes. "I don't love him. I think. But Mom, he's fun. And we have stuff in common. He's a little new to everything here but I guess any suitor would be. I think … this might actually be okay."

Mom nods, understanding.

"So you're saying yes," she says.

Moana winces. Trust her mother to get right to the point.

"Yeah," she says. "I guess. I think I will."

"When?" Mom says. "How many more proposals?"

Moana opens her mouth, chest puffing with the beginnings of an answer, only to deflate as her answer, too, escapes her.

That was the question, wasn't it?

All the royal marriages that she'd ever known, there was no need for the extra bits of ceremony like the multiple proposals. The council picked someone for you, or someone proposed and the council approved. Food is made, mats and tapa are presented, speeches are spoken, and the ceremonies last maybe a day at most, not the grander, more traditional four days to more than a week. Her parents may have done an excellent job training her for chiefdom, but even they couldn't have known how to help her with this.

"That's the thing," Moana says, finally.

Mom blinks. "What is?"

"Mom, if he approves," she says, "and the council approves, and I approve, then does it even matter how many proposals there are, if it's going to happen anyway?"

And there it is, the niggling little question that's finally out of her system.

It feels good to finally get it out, even if now that it is it's wreaking havoc upon the world.

It takes a while but the statement falls across her mother's face like a harsh dawn—slowly, but brightly, to the point where it's almost jarring. She blinks like she's coming out of a dream. "What are you trying to say?" Mom says. "Are you saying yes tomorrow?"

"Would it be so bad if I did?" Moana says. "I mean, why delay this? Why make him go back to his village—kingdom? For what, more presents? To make presents he's not even expecting to get? He's not expecting anything, Mom, he just wants to make his dad happy and ally their kingdom with us. He might be wondering why we're taking so long to give him an answer."

Mom goes quiet again, and there's the return of the stare, the uncanny probe into the soul that Moana swears her mother learned from Te Fiti herself.

Whatever. Moana's started on this line of questioning, she might as well follow it.

"Why risk our village losing out on an ally like Motuloa?" she says. "What if he goes back and their king says I'm asking too much? Or what if he goes back but he's killed on the way home? Storms can still happen. The kakamora could always decide to go back to piracy."

She swallows. "What if I let him go and he just forgets about me while he's away?" she says, and the harsher voices inside her bring back Maui's little jabs about Lasalo, and how she missed out because she was just that hopeless at knowing when to make a move. "What if he finds someone else? Someone better?"

There's a quiet moment, and followed by the definite feeling of something shifting in the air, before her mother's arms wrap tight around her, fierce and loving.

"Then he doesn't deserve you," she says, and when she pulls back there are tears in her eyes that Moana is beginning to feel are mirrored in her own. "Okay?" she says. "If you reject his first offer and he holds it against you, if he doesn't even think to ask if there's a way he can come back and do better, then that's his loss, not yours."

Moana nods, in lieu of speaking.

Her mother clears her throat, blinking back tears. "Moana, listen to me," she says. "You are the daughter of the chief and the next great chief of our people. You have every right to practise your traditions. Plus, you saved the world, my little minnow. If anyone can ask for more, it's you. And anyone who says otherwise can answer to me."

Moana nods again, and leans into her mother's touch, back to the faint smell of the flowers in her headdress.

She might as well be eight again, crying over why Dad won't let her near the boats, but she doesn't care. Moana closes her eyes and takes a breath, and smiles a little when Pua begins to snore against Mom's lap.

It's like they'd just had a pleasant conversation about Hei Hei's latest antics when Mom speaks again, all smiles and a little mischief.

"Look, your judgement hasn't steered us wrong yet. Say yes tomorrow, and we can break out the tapa and fine mats right now, make Chief Le wait a little bit," she says. "But you really wanna learn more about the person you're marrying? See what they're like when things don't go their way. That'll teach you more than a thousand boat races."

Moana gets up. "Mom?"

She's met with a fond smile, her mother looking off into the distance at Dad starting to make his way uphill towards home, the feathers of his chief's headdress softly swaying with every step.

"Your dad and I were friends when we were arranged, yes. We grew up in the same village and everyone knew everyone else," Mom says, "But I could be sweet-talked by that romantic old sap for a hundred centuries and not learn as much as I did those first few years of marriage."

Pua continues to snore, blissfully unaware, as tears well back up in Mom's eyes.

"It was … hard … before you came along, Moana," she says, and her smile is fractured and wet but still somehow so full of joy as she strokes back her daughter's hair, and looks at Moana like she's back from the dead. "But I'd never know the kind of person your father really is otherwise, the person he becomes when you take away the things that make him comfortable," she says. "And he'd never know me, either."

They didn't talk much about the years before Moana's birth, but she knew enough about them, the brother she could've met and the siblings that never were. It still hurt every time.

And it's her turn to give her mother a hug.

Mom sniffles a bit, laughing through the tears before she gently bats Moana away.

"I made sense back there, right?" she says. "I didn't just audition to be the next village crazy lady?"

Moana laughs, wiping away her own tears. "No," she says. "I mean, yeah, yeah, I got every word."

"Good."

Moana leans back against her, her head against her mom's headdress as Mom lets out a little sigh, and leans in return.

"Thanks, Mom," she says, and it really doesn't feel like she says that often enough. "I think I finally know what I'm going to say tomorrow."

It's a lovely little interlude, warm and sweet in the cold of the winds as the afternoon drags on, Pua's snoring resigned to a gentle, almost soothing rise and fall of his chest. The perfect environment for hard truths and quiet revelations. It's peaceful—transformative, even.

Until Mom ruins it by singing, "You're welcome" by way of reply.

Moana groans. "Mom."

"What?" she says. "Maui's fun. I can't spend time with Maui?"

"It was such a nice moment, too."

"He helps me take care of the animals, Moana!"

Moana drags her hand down her face, and resolves to find a way to make them hang out less.

* * *

She hasn't been this jittery about attending to guests since the morning the God of Forests and Birds himself offered her immortality and all the powers that tended to come to the lower ranks of the divine. She's not sure she remembers if he ever mentioned anything other than what you'd expect from immortality—youth, resistance to disease, less need for food and sleep, that sort of thing—but sometimes she wonders what the other powers could've been. Super strength and shapeshifting, like Maui? Or something more unique to her?

She wonders if there's still a chance to take him up on the offer. Maybe not the full package. Maybe just the shapeshifting. Or invisibility. Anything to give her some peace from the eyes she can feel watching her every step.

Not that it helps much but the prince at least seems to feel much the same, being a stranger to town as well as the future spouse of their next chief. He deflects their gaze well, but his deep brown eyes dart back to her at increasingly short intervals, scanning her for any signs of her decision in a pale imitation of Mom's penetrating stare, his eating alternating between anxious, pathetic nibbles and the hurried, ravenous hunger of someone who hoped food would shut up their brain for a bit. And as if there weren't already enough on her mind, Moana now has to actively stop Maui from bursting into tears of laughter every few minutes.

It's both an eternity and alarmingly soon for the attendants to clear the grand _fale_ for the announcement. It's both a comfort and the scariest thing in the world to see just about her entire village gather around them, their faces full of nothing but trust in her and her judgement.

She's this close to running into the nearest bit of forest and asking if invisibility powers are still up for grabs, when her dad gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

He beams down at her, his eyes shining with pride beneath his neatest, most impressive headdress. "Your grandmother would've loved to see you find someone," he says, softly, just for them to hear, and Moana squeezes back, whispering he's going to get in so much trouble if he makes her cry right now.

"It is the _first proposal_ ," she hisses. "What'll the other chiefs say?"

His laugh is soft, barely more than a huff of amusement, but it soothes her, and slowly, without knowing it, her toes uncurl, and her feet relax, and she no longer needs to run.

The formalities begin. Pleasantries are made, speeches are spoken, orators wax beautifully and nearly impenetrably poetic in their specialised orator language, and before she knows it Fetuau the orator steps aside to present the daughter of the chief to her prospective spouse.

What seems like the whole village goes silent as all eyes once again fall on Moana.

Fetuau whispers sidelong at her. "Same answer as earlier?" he says, his gentle face crinkling in a soft smile.

There's a stolen glance at the prince in all his finery, strong and gentle and oh so nervous as he looks up at his latest attempt at finding himself a wife. And it is tempting, it is so very tempting, to say yes, to run with her reputation for risk and see the laughter back in his deep brown eyes. Forget the ceremony, forget the formalities, just have a short, humble wedding just like the ones they've had at least the last few hundred years and get everything over and done with so she can digest these butterflies in her stomach and get back to normal.

The wind blows back in from the other side of the hills, whipping up from behind them before scrambling down, desperate, towards the harbour, and eventually, the sea.

She can see the whole village from here, her pride and joy, her legacy.

And she knows, it's not all about her. This is more important than what faith she can put into a boat race and a few nice meals.

She can wait. He'll be worth it.

And if it's meant to be, he'll understand.

She braces herself, and turns to Fetuau.

"Same answer," she whispers, and he nods.

He speaks towards the visiting party and indicates her anew.

"Look for another woman to be your wife," he says, "and the daughter of the chief will look for a different man to be her husband."

The village around them nods and murmurs in wonder and agreement, the very oldest of the village particularly fascinated to see the return of the old marriage customs, and the assembly begins to break up.

And that's the end of it.

Or at least, it should be.

What she had expected was that wry smile, that sarcasm and wit as he would shrug dramatically and retreat inside with her family and the council to negotiate the terms for the next proposal. Her father would make a show of putting up a hard bargain, oh it's such short notice, oh however will we make the mats in time for the next proposal, but Dad would go easy on him, because he knew she liked him. Tuleimotu would sail away, and then he would come back, just like how Moana always comes back, and Maui would make some unimpressed quip about how the pigs were bigger last time he proposed.

That's how it was supposed to go.

But the prince stays where he is, speechless as the crowd disperses and the announcement sinks in. His orator, frowning, gently murmurs something to him, only to be met with more of the increasingly horrified silence.

Moana struggles to keep from turning immediately to her parents, or to Maui, or just, anyone. She wasn't the only one seeing this, right? What's this? Was this a surprise? Was he expecting a yes right away? This was how her people married off their royals. Did no other villages he visited in his trips around the world practise this custom? This was traditional. There must've been other villages who did the same.

The crowd, confused, begins to reassemble.

"Please, Your Highness," the visiting orator says, louder this time, to stand a chance against the confused murmuring. "She said no. We must respect her choice."

The prince shakes his head, and it's like he's coming out of a dream.

"No," he says. "No, I'm not going to— No, not again."

That beautifully smooth voice wavers, tightening in a way she hadn't even heard when he talked about his problems with his station. "Moana," he says. "I need to hear this from Moana."

She actually does turn to her family now, and even Maui doesn't seem to know what to do.

Dad steps forward, calmly as he can. "It is the orator's duty to relay the daughter of the chief's decision," he says. "Fetuau asked her just now to confirm."

"Please," Tuleimotu says. "I won't leave until I hear this from her."

"Your _Highness_ ," the orator stammers. "They gave us their answer."

"And orators can lie!"

He whirls on Moana, a wild, almost hunted look in his eyes.

"Moana," he says. "Not you. Anyone but you. You're not just another shallow princess, you're— My father sent me all this way and for once the match is someone I can actually stand and—" He stops, and when he speaks again he's pleading. "Say something."

There's another panicked glance at her family, another look of shock and confusion staring back at her, and she turns back to the visiting party, scrambling to find her voice before this escalates further.

It is more of a relief than it should be to note the familiar glow of Maui's hook at her side.

She clears her throat and steps forward, daring to look the prince in his beautiful deep brown eyes.

It's fine, she has to remind herself. It's fine. It's obviously just a small cultural issue. She'll clarify the customs before he leaves and it'll be fine. He's been everywhere. He's seen more than her. He'll get it. He'll come back.

"Prince Tuleimotu," she says, gently as she can, "the orator gave my answer."

But he's gone, stormed off into the murmurs and exclamations of the crowd before she can explain any further.

* * *

Maui insists on accompanying her to the docks in the form of some terrifying creature of legend, the bigger and scarier the better, y'know, just in case.

"I'm just saying," he says, as the sun bears down on them and the wind nips at her heels, urging her faster towards the sea, "I don't care that he's some sort of world traveller, he didn't bring any weapons, and even if he did, no one stands a chance against a dragon."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she says.

"Exactly," he says. "If even you've never heard of a dragon, imagine how Mr Safe Waters would handle it."

"Maui."

"Fine," he says. "Taniwha, then. Something closer to home. We'll freak him out but we won't blow his mind. Get to the point and scare him without the whole 'oh no, what's that?' spiel."

"We? No. You. Don't drag me into this plan," she snaps. "And no. No shapeshifting."

He stops, and then, "Giant. Eight-eyed. Bat."

" _Maui_."

He's not smiling anymore, trying to boost her morale like he's psyching them up for a battle. There's genuine worry now, floating up to the surface as the smile falters and fails. She's not just heading into battle, she's going in there alone and for some forsaken reason she won't let him come. And that's just not right.

"Moana." He's pleading now, swooping in front of her before she can take another step, hook planted faithfully by his side for extra blockage from the path. "Please," he says. "Go talk to him and do your speech, kiss and make up and tell him to come back. Whatever the plan is. Just, please, don't go alone."

If that was supposed to move her, it wasn't working. She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. "Really?" she says. "You too? Maui, we sailed alone together for years. I've killed actual monsters. This is one normal mortal guy."

"And that's exactly why I need to go with you!" he says. "Mo, this is different. Feelings are involved."

She scoffs. "Feelings."

"You know what I mean!" he says. "Feelings make things complicated. I don't know why. They just do. Me, I'm practically your brother, and none of those monsters were trying to steal your heart."

"Except the ones who literally tried to steal my heart."

" _Moana_ ," he says, and he's really not smiling anymore.

He looks like he wants to shake her, get something through her head the same way he needed to get it through her head that those strange new boats were not traders. But he stops, and the tension in his body language stops looking like he's about to literally snap in half, and there's that worry again, floating back up to the surface.

"Mo, when it gets bad like this, when there's a chance it could get violent, actual warriors can freeze and forget how to fight. I know. I've seen it," he says. "It's not— It's not their fault. But it goes to show, no one's safe from the usual dangers."

She very wisely refrains from pointing out it was her fists that got her into this mess in the first place.

Or that she actually has frozen once.

But that was different, it's not like it was a fight.

"Tuleimotu wouldn't hurt me," she says.

"Nobody thinks the person they love would," he says. "Okay, okay, look, go talk alone, by all means, get some closure, but please, Hina, at least just let me stay where I can see you."

Whatever answer she has for him, it's gone now, taken by the wind and floating out towards the sea, and all she can do is stare.

Maui's about to sigh in relief until she asks, "What did you call me?"

He blinks, and shakes his head. "Moana," he corrects himself, wincing. One of his hands awkwardly rubs at his wrist. "Your name is Moana."

"Maui … "

Her hand comes up to land softly on his arm, near the tattoos of the eel and the first coconut tree. She's not angry. She's not even annoyed anymore. Right now she just wants to know if he's okay.

His hand comes up to cover her own. "I'm sorry," he says. "Demigod memory. Slip of the tongue."

"I know."

"No, I … " He stops, and tries again. "Please, just, don't go alone. I dunno what I'd do if anything happened to you."

She sighs, and her head falls gently against his chest, rising and falling with the rise and fall of his breath. She takes a moment to just help him calm down, and be still. She's here. She's fine. She's here.

"I get it," she says. "I get why you're worried."

She breaks away.

"But it's okay," she says. "It's different. I _want_ him to come back. He doesn't need to kidnap me, he's not going to eat anyone. He's getting what he wants! We're just going to have a little talk. He's been to so many places, Maui. He's seen all these other cultures. He'll understand."

She sighs. "I … I need to know I can trust myself to handle this," she says. "I need to know I can do things—without my parents, without you. I need to learn how to stand on my own."

But that doesn't seem to do it.

"Moana … " he says.

And she looks at him.

Oh, how could she resist that face. How could she let that heart break any further.

Her head falls back against his chest. "Fine. But you're watching from the trade hall," she says. " _Human_. I don't want him to freak out out any more than he already is."

His sigh of relief is huge and dramatic, just like Maui in general, and his head drops to lean against hers. "Thanks, cuz."

* * *

She's not too late to find him still at the docks, dressed back in his voyaging clothes and watching as his attendants continue loading provisions back into the hold. It's a respectable amount of cargo, enough for the month or so it would take to sail back that far west. Still, loaded as they are, the boats still sink less deeply into the water now, a much less worrying sight than when they first arrived, overloaded with gifts and pigs. She wonders if they still plan on bringing those gifts for the journey back, or if it would shame the king to see all that evidence of their latest failure.

He's still shaken. She can see that all the way from the far end of the docks, on the other side of a small crowd of traders, attendants, and the odd gossip or two who want to see how the failed suitor is reacting. There's little resemblance between the tall, confident figure he cut on the day of his arrival and the way he carries himself now, slowly, and almost young. She has to fight both the ache in her heart and the wind whipping out from over the hills to keep a steady pace and not, as the wind seems to be suggesting, just run to him, and explain that it'll all be okay.

There's a glance back at the trade hall nearby, where Maui catches her eye and raises his hook in a hollow show of reassurance, before she turns and makes those final few steps to the prince and his boats.

Okay.

She straightens her flower headdress, and takes a final quick breath.

Here goes.

"Tuleimotu?" she says, and when he turns there's a relief at the sight of her, before he remembers, and the smile is gone from his eyes.

He's cold, she notices. Stoic and strong in a way she guesses he tended to act after every rejection. His back straightens, and his voice when it comes out is as smooth and low as the first time she heard it.

"Come to make sure I leave?" he says. "Don't worry. I get the message. I've heard it often enough."

She winces. Of course he'd take every rejection this hard. How could she not see that? No wonder he's lashing out now.

"Do you wanna talk somewhere alone?" she says.

"Didn't seem all that interested in privacy earlier."

He's just upset, she has to remind herself. She mustn't take it personally. He's just hurt. She can fix this. If experience has taught her anything, it's that if anyone can fix this it'd be her. She just needs to see where he's coming from, and work from a place of compassion.

"Tuleimotu—"

"Prince Tuleimotu."

She sighs.

"Prince Tuleimotu," she says. "It was just ceremony. That's the proper way to declare the decision."

"The decision," he says, like he finally has a name for whatever sick joke that back there was. "And whose decision was that?"

"Mine," she says. "What made you think my village would just lie about what I said?"

"Please. If it were really your choice, you wouldn't have said no," he says.

What?

He softens, all his hard edges gone for now as his deep brown eyes take her in and he takes one of her callused hands in his own. This isn't the gentle caresses of yesterday, shy hands trailing slowly across the small of her back to draw her closer, this is disbelief, and a need to keep her close by any means he can.

"We had a connection, Moana," he says. "You felt it, too. That back there, on the boat yesterday, that was something."

She curses at the blood rushing to her head, the sound of her heart in her ears, the heat rising up her cheeks. Pleasant as they are, right now they're just obstacles in the way of simply remembering how to talk.

"We're the same," he says. "We're voyagers. It's only been a few days, but, the meals, the race, that kiss. Tell me you didn't feel anything."

"Of course I did," she says.

Oh, of all the times for her mouth to start working again.

His hands grip hers more tightly, and it's an ordeal just to keep her attention on her words instead of the hitch in his breath and the hope in his eyes.

"So your village pressured you," he says. "They told you to say no. They made you reject the proposal."

She shakes her head. "They didn't," she says. "It was my decision to make."

His hands still, and slowly, the edges return.

"Then what was it?" he says. "How was it not enough this time? How'd I manage to fail here, with another voyager, with you?"

The crowd between the trade hall and the docks has grown since they started their conversation, the couple of odd gossips quickly joined by dock workers, fishermen, and traders. Even his attendants have started to pay attention, a few of them shrugging and only half watching the prince in his latest rejection speech, a few of them actively staring. In the distance, Maui strains to keep his line of sight clear.

She holds up her free hand, asking everyone to stand down. She's got this.

"You are making a scene," she says, and his hands only grip tighter.

"And you're just another princess," he says. "All you see is the titles and the presents. And if you get to dress me down and shave my head in front of everyone, I get say something before I leave."

She's in public. There are so many people around them. Maui's watching. Tuleimotu can't— He wouldn't do anything. She just has to stay calm, and stay kind. She can defuse this.

"What do you need to say?"

He lets go, and he's back to the tall, confident figure she first met on the docks. Behind him his orator and attendants pay attention, and he straightens further at the knowledge that he's got an audience.

"I am a prince of the kingdom of Motuloa," he declares. "I sailed all this way, with all these presents, ignoring all these princesses, to secure a bond with a mere daughter of a chief, a village maid. One who waited too long to get married and is surprised no one has bothered approaching her until now."

The crowd, murmuring and growing in number, falls silent around them, and in the prince's gentle face and deep set eyes is the ghost of a smile.

He circles around her, gaming her like it's just another boat race. "Was it the gifts?" he says. "Not enough pigs? Jewellery not your aesthetic? Pottery not novel enough for this mighty voyager, who's barely even touched the borders of the west? Any real royalty and they'd be fine, but not for the Chosen One, apparently. Not for the Restorer of the Heart, Friend to Gods, Reviver of Voyaging."

"It wasn't the gifts," she says. "And those aren't my titles."

"So it's me," he says.

Yes.

No.

Sort of.

She shakes her head, and holds firm. "It wasn't that, either."

"Then tell me, Moana," he says. "I need to know what makes you better than all of us, what chance any of us would have if a prince of one of the largest kingdoms in the great ocean isn't good enough for you." And his eyes dart over her like she's a good to haggle over, and not even worth the effort. "Daughter of the chief."

That's her title, and she wears it with pride, and he spits it out with such venom that she almost flinches from the sting.

She sets her jaw. "Tuleimotu, that is _not_ fair," she says. "I _came_ to tell you my rejection was a challenge to try again. Your proposal was treated as a first offer, it wasn't rejected completely. Now though I'm not so sure."

He stops, and the words sink in almost visibly as he takes in this new information.

"It was what?" he says.

For a second she can feel the hope swell in her. Maybe he'll calm down. Maybe he'll be reasonable, even apologetic. This was all a big misunderstanding, and they just need to talk, calmly, like adults.

Instead it only escalates the situation. He's surprised, oddly amused. The customs of the east, she can hear him say. So quaint, so old-fashioned.

He bites back a smile.

"Oh," he says. "So this was some sort of sick test? What, was I supposed to plead my case, beg, come back with even more presents? Go through all the trouble even the princesses never asked for, for _you?_ "

"What?" she says. "No, that's not what the rejection—"

He's incredulous, almost laughing in shock and a sort of pity.

"You really think you're worth that?" he says.

And whatever answer there is she has for him, she can't seem to find it now.

This isn't happening. These are not the words coming out of his mouth. He can't be saying this and he cannot be saying this to her. This isn't the same man she was so sure she could say yes to.

And yet—her mind tells her, her mind screams—and yet it is.

Those are those same deep brown eyes, the same strong jaw and windswept hair, the same callused hands that once held her close and brushed so gently against her own. This is the same smooth, beautiful voice raised up against her, the same broad and tall figure tensed up and towering over her to make her feel small.

Talk, she tells herself. _Talk_.

"Moana, I've been through this with actual princesses," he says. "I can understand why they'd want the full royal treatment. I get why they'd want more than just a minor prince."

His voice cracks, but he recovers quickly, all his focus back on her.

"But the daughter of the chief," he says, and his eyes sweep out onto what of the village he can see from the docks. "Of a new little settlement that can barely provide for itself. Anyone else and you'd be lucky to receive anyone. But one little mission and suddenly you're an exception. You're a prize, just because when you were a teenager the Ocean told you you were special, and after all these years, you still think you are."

And it's a fall into a forest river, a blast of wind from the very north of her wind compass. It's something that her years of fighting say she needs to fight back but that her body just … can't.

What did he just say?

She never said that. She told him she never said anything remotely like that. How could he say that, in front of everyone?

He scoffs. "And you want everyone else to think so, too."

No. That's not true. That's not—

How could he think that of her?

She can't speak. She can't— She's fought worse than he could ever fight, voyaged through worse than he could ever imagine, and she can't even find it in herself to move.

Was this what Maui meant? Was this how easy it was, to forget how to fight?

"You can't coast off your reputation forever, Moana, lording something that you did, what, five years ago, like it's enough to actually elevate you for the rest of your life," he says, an incredulous laugh as he says the word _elevate_ , it's just that ridiculous to think about. "The trick will wear thin," he says, "and in a few years people will only know you as the girl who can never live up to her past."

Her eyes burn and her throat is so constricted it's hard to breathe, and when she speaks her reply is choked and small. "That's not true."

"Is it?" he says. "Name one time someone introduced you without bringing up the Te Fiti quest. Name one trade route you set up without the help of your precious demigod."

He's not right. He can't be right. She knows he can't be but she can't—there's nothing coming up and she can't—

"What have you actually done," he says, "that makes you more than just something you did when you were sixteen? What makes _you_ worth all this trouble?"

Was he right?

There's no smile in his little huff of amusement, no more of the laughter in those dark eyes as he finally backs away. "Yeah," he says, like he's coming out of a trance and seeing her clearly for the first time. "Thought so."

It hurts more than it should when he walks away, gesturing for his attendants to unmoor the boats, and it frustrates her more than it should that despite it all, she doesn't want him to go.

"Tuleimotu," she says, and she needs to say something, prove him wrong, because he is, he's wrong, but—

"Goodbye, Moana."

And she can do little more than watch him leave.

* * *

Maui's arm curls around her just a little tighter as she finishes recounting the events of the afternoon.

"I should've been there," he murmurs, his voice low and dangerous and rumbling through him and into her like an oncoming storm. "I should've stopped him." His other hand grips around his hook handle, white-knuckled and ready. "I'll make up for it. I'll kill him. Do you want me to kill him? I've killed for less. I could kill him."

Moana laughs through the tears, and repositions herself on the grass so she can better lean against his soft chest. Her eyes go out back down towards the harbour, and out again past the small gap in the reef and towards the horizon, where, what seems like forever ago, she watched a tiny fleet of two vessels leave, just as the sun reached its peak.

She sniffles. "You're not going to kill him, Maui."

"Turn him into something, then," he says, "like the dog he is, or some sort of small baby fish to match his small baby brain."

"Maui."

"You're right," he huffs. "Why take the risk when good old-fashioned murder doesn't let you down?"

She nudges him gently with her shoulder, her Mini Maui right up against his Mini Moana. "No transformations," she says. "And you're not going to kill him. I'd hate to explain to an entire kingdom why their prince disappeared and why they shouldn't declare war on us."

He pauses for a bit, as if to consider it, when he shrugs.

"You'd have a demigod on your side."

"Maui."

"What?" he says. "We've fought worse!"

She sighs now. It's beginning to wear thin. "Maui," she says. "This isn't something you can fight off with your hook."

He tenses a little more before his grip loosens, and the muscles all around her begin to relax. The hand holding his hook lingers before it reluctantly lets go. "It should be."

Moana chokes back a sob as both his arms now hold her close, a silent apology for the words he just can't find right now, but they've known each other long enough that she can guess what it means. This is the hug of the problems he can't solve with violence, the hug of the things he feels he could've done more to help with.

I should've been there to stop this, he's saying. I should've had your back.

She hugs him back as best as she can manage from her position.

Don't beat yourself up over this, she's saying. I'm just glad you're here.

Another sob wrenches through her, this time cutting through the silence of the moment. The hug softens as she breaks away to wipe away another wave of tears.

"I could've married that," she says. "I was this close to saying yes today."

Maui shifts to face her better. "You were what? Kid—"

"I know, I know!" she says. "I guess I figured, if it was going to happen anyway, why bother with the extra stuff? Just—" she gestures vaguely, "—get it over with."

Maui stares.

"Mo," he says, "that doesn't sound like you."

She shrugs. "Maybe it is."

"No," he says, "it's not."

The wind blows in from beyond the hills, and she hugs her knees to her chest.

"No," she says. "It's not."

He knows. He always knows. And she both loves him and hates him for always somehow knowing when she needs to talk.

"I think," she says, "I think I was worried that if I miss my chance with him, what would the other suitors be like?"

Maui sniffs. "Better, hopefully."

"You know what I mean," Moana says. "Maui, I'm the first royal in hundreds of years who has to marry someone they didn't grow up with. I get the proposals, and then … "

Her eyes wander back down towards the harbour, where the royal _malae_ continues to take shape, and her arms wrap tighter around her legs.

"I was always going to get matched with someone," she says. "I was always okay with that. I guess the thought of marriage didn't thrill me because of the idea of just … strangers. I mean ever since Dad opened his mouth and told all the chiefs at the conference to come send over their best, I've been here wondering what I'd get. But then the prince sails into town and he's just—"

"Handsome?"

She glances sidelong at Maui.

"A surprise," she says. "Maui, he's a voyager. He's gone to places I've never seen. He makes me laugh. He sails like that boat is part of him. And the council said he was okay! If I had to marry a stranger, I could do worse."

"Or way, way better," Maui grumbles.

"Maui."

"I'm just saying," he says.

She shakes her head.

"And I guess," she says, "I wanted to keep him here. Before he could leave, and forget about me."

She draws her knees closer to her chin, all the better to hide her creeping blush.

"It's silly, I know," she says. "But that's what happens when you're hopeless, right?"

She keeps her eyes on the harbour, buzzing with activity in the late afternoon. Anything other than Maui and the inevitable heartbreak in his face.

It doesn't do much to help.

"Kid … "

She winces, and barely manages to fight back another wave of tears.

In the cold of the afternoon breeze she can feel Maui shift back to sit beside her, the air around them shifting to make room for him.

"I didn't mean it," he says. "Mo, you're not hopeless. You're just … really new at this. There's nothing wrong with that. That's never stopped you getting better. You're a quick learner."

"No," she says, "I'm an exception. I'm a _prize_."

"Okay, now I'm really going to kill him."

It feels good to laugh again.

She lets go of her knees, stretches out her legs. In the distance the waves ripple around Motuiti, and its sandbar just starts to reveal itself. It's like she's seeing it new.

"I let him win," she says. "The boat race, all those times he told me our customs were weird—that kiss, now that I think about it."

"Wait, what do you mean 'now that I think about it', what did he—?"

"I went along with everything he wanted," she continues, "just because I was afraid I couldn't do better if he left."

The village stretches out before them, quietly beginning to thrive. The weavers deliver another load of fine mats to the trade hall. Work continues on the new sugarcane thatch to replace the coconut roofs. Children play in the fields, their kites made of the tapa her trade deals brought in the first place. Her people. Her village. Happy, and provided for. How could he say she'd done nothing since Te Fiti. How could she say nothing to defend herself, when the evidence was all around them.

She shakes her head. The Moana of just a couple of hours ago seems so far now, so lost in the fog. But now she sees clear.

"I can't believe I believed that," she says. "And I can't believe he actually made me think all I am is what I did five years ago."

Maui frowns, and she can just about feel him planning out the latest strategy to kill him.

"Listen to me," he says. "You can do better. You _will_ do better. You _deserve_ better. If you can go from the most pathetic sailor in the world to the person you are now, you can go from this to finding someone you'd actually want to raise your kids with."

It shouldn't be enough to cheer her up, but it does, just knowing that this is coming from a guy who, when they first met, thought of her as a disposable little mortal he could gladly leave for dead.

She smiles sidelong at him. "Oh?" she says. "And what'll this suitor be like?"

Maui squints at her, and he considers it.

"Tall," he says, "so your kids actually have a fighting chance of being a normal height."

"Hey."

He grins. "Quiet," he says. "The strong and silent type. So Uncle Maui won't go deaf whenever he visits the family."

"You're supposed to be making me feel better."

He's giggling now. "Even-tempered," he says, "so Grampa Tui won't have to worry about your heir starting a wa—ow! Ow!"

She lets go of his ear, and gives him one more smack upside the head for good measure.

It doesn't actually hurt him, she knows, and that little conciliatory rub of his ear is just for show, but she smirks in triumph anyway.

"Kidding!" he says. "Nah, you're gonna find someone cool and strong, kid, someone who's loyal enough to fight for you and smart enough to let you take the lead."

She grimaces. "I'm not marrying you, Maui."

The insult barely even touches him. "You think I'm cool?"

She shakes her head and nudges him, her Mini Maui up against his Mini Moana, before she leans back on her hands, and lets herself just take in the heat from above, and the cool of the tradewinds, still continuing to blow.

"I think," she says, "that rejection saved me a lot of heartbreak down the road."

Maui huffs. "Understatement."

"Oh hush," she says. "I'm saying whoever I end up marrying, I think I'm going to do it traditionally. See how they handle rejection first, give the village some time to make the dowry. I'll do it properly."

Maui nods. "Milk 'em for all they're worth."

"Maui."

"What?" he says. "That's tradition, too!"

She rolls her eyes.

The early afternoon isn't the kindest time of day here. The sun bears down hard on anyone unlucky enough to be out in the open, and the wind whips over the hills and scrambles, desperate, towards the sea, almost nipping at the ankles in an effort to push you off balance and send you tumbling downhill. But that's the fun of the cold spell, that the drier, colder weather brings with it the ideal conditions for sailing.

And she could probably use a break right now.

"What're you thinking, kid?" Maui says, shuffling to face her better.

Her eyes lead her back down, past the harbour, and onto the sea.

"I'm thinking it'd be nice to go around the harbour," she says. "Sail around before the sun goes."

"You got it." Maui gets up, his hook barely missing her head as he slings it casually over his shoulder. "C'mon, it's a long way back down."

But he looks back down to see her already standing, tying her hair into a tight bun as she flashes him her most innocent, most winning grin.

"No," he says.

She grins bigger, sweeter. "Please?"

His long-suffering sigh is almost funny in all its overwrought drama, and it clashes spectacularly with the smile in his eyes. "I've spoiled you," he says, and in a blink she finds herself once again in the presence of a giant hawk, its head bowed and its wings spread for the quaint little village maid from the east crazy enough to ride one of its monsters.

Correction: the quaint little village maid from the east awesome enough to ride one of its monsters.

She allows herself one more look at her village from this angle—small, but growing, and flourishing under her watch—and gets on.

"Thanks, cuz," she says, and it really doesn't feel like she says that enough to the friend—to the brother—who'd always have her back.

He chirps what she can only imagine is giant hawk for _you're welcome_ , and she barely has time to roll her eyes and tighten her grip before there is a massive flap of his wings and a swirl of dust beneath them, and they're up in the air.

* * *

 **Notes:** The suitor's small voyaging boat is, I assume, not too different from I guess an obscenely beautiful yet practical flying proa, a famously speedy type of boat. These canoes were used for cargo and war, but they're also known for their use as messenger vessels. Even Europeans used them for relaying messages because their boats at the time just couldn't keep up. Moana's canoe is basically one as well, (after a little _Pimp My Ride_ -style makeover courtesy of Maui), which is why they're neck and neck when they race. It's just that the prince's boat is just … so pretty, you guys. It's so pretty she can't even deal.


	4. The Fever

**Chapter Summary:** It seems like Moana's been in training to be the next great chief of her people all her life. She can scarcely imagine life without her dad within reach to guide her in the ways of leadership. But that's the thing you can forget about leadership: that the old leader has to go before the new leader can step in. And sometimes, you're reminded that the old leader can go before anyone's ready for them to.

 **Notes:** I am so sorry. This chapter isn't even that long and I'd outlined this (and most of the rest of the series) months ago. But yeah. This series has been exhausting to write from the start and I guess after nearly a year continuously yelling at myself for barely managing to put out _anything_ every 10-14 days _why are you such a slow writer_ I just needed time off. I probably should've considered that it would eventually take a toll to write every day drawing on my own experiences with death and illness and complicated, sometimes unwillingly severed, platonic and familial relationships. So, cue a month or two of absurdly fluffy shenanigans. I didn't think I'd help shed my angst reputation through a Moana college AU Tumblr roleplay of all things but life's what happens when you're making other plans, isn't it. It's been an amazing break, and one I've sorely needed. I'm drawing and designing things again after years fighting off soul-crushing dread whenever I so much as touch a pencil or my drawing tablet. So there's that. But yes, this story needs to finish and I'm back in a good enough place to keep telling it. So here we go.

The fever they're referring to here isn't as common a disease in my research as, say, elephantiasis, tuberculosis, or various unexplained painful tumours, so uh, I guess it could've gone worse for Tui? While it probably wouldn't have been common or endemic on Motunui, further east it does seem to be a problem, though whether or not it's endemic or introduced in that part of the world I'm not sure. As I said, it's a liberty, so I don't even name the fever here. There are also a few other liberties, such as a pretty modern understanding of what causes the fever and how to prevent and treat it. Perhaps Motunui in its hundreds of years of isolation took the time to figure it out.

While I'm here. Pillows back in the day were made of bamboo. There would be a large bit that functioned a bit like a neck pillow to support the head, supported by legs lashed to it. I'm not sure if they're comfortable but Laulii Willis in her memoirs said a lot of people around her preferred them over Western pillows, so there must've been something there. You can see a clear example during Tala's deathbed scene!

* * *

Moana's still blinking the sleep out of her eyes when she's greeted with the sight of flowers lined up in a little row near her bedroll, damp and cold from the weather outside, the chill managing to keep them them good and fresh. She yawns and gives herself another few blinks, her arms tingling as they brush up against the mess of tangles on her head she calls hair, and frowns at the grey sky, the water dripping off the roof.

She's more awake now, but barely. The bedroll calls to her like a dear old friend, but its voice is drowned out by the chorus around her, the sky, the birds, the sounds of the day beginning to start. It's dawn, or it's just a little past it. The village is awake, and so she should be, too. Moana nearly groans at the thought of it, not on this beautiful cold morning just perfect for sleeping in.

Nearby her father gently nudges Pua away from the flowers, humming something soft and beautiful under his breath as he passes them by. "Ah," he says to the pig. "Not for you."

Pua stays lying where he is, snorting dismissively. Please, he almost seems to be saying. He knows how it's done by now. There's no need to treat him like a piglet.

The flowers stay untouched, still glistening with water, as Moana considers which to wear today.

"Any preferences?" Dad says, leaning over her shoulder, that slight edge of uncertainty that comes with every time he brings her flowers to wear in her hair. He doesn't do it as often as he used to, but it's always a nice gesture. She doesn't see the need for him to worry she'd do something like knock them out of his hand.

She considers.

They're nothing they could get too far away from the house, nothing Dad would've had to put himself through too much trouble to get. Frangipani, hibiscus, tiare, all good strong safe classic choices.

She stifles a yawn, and reaches for her pick.

"This one."

She can just feel that sentimental little smirk as she holds up the hibiscus.

"I knew you'd pick that," he says, and before Moana can so much as tell him she's heard this already he starts launching into the well-worn story of baby Moana and the bush of hibiscus that blossomed shortly after her birth. "You know," he says, and Moana catches herself silently mouthing along with the words, "the red hibiscus was the first flower I brought home to give to you."

It's so tempting to interrupt him, to say she's heard this so many times she can probably recite it by heart so many times, but he always gets so sentimental at this story she can't bring herself to make him stop.

She puts down the flower and gets up to get her comb. "I know, Dad."

"And your mum, she thought it'd be bad luck," he says, "getting so attached to a newborn. She thought we'd be tempting fate. You were barely a week old. I had to weave it into your sleeping basket."

"Mm-hmm," she says, sitting back down to start the process of untangling.

"But you were just so small and strong and I wanted to—" He stops, and there it is again, the embarrassment, that fond little smile. She can't see it from where she is right now but it's there. "Ah. I've told you this story, haven't I?"

"Every time I pick a red hibiscus, Dad," she says.

He huffs in amusement, lingering for a bit before he steps back. "Yes, well," he says, "you'll understand when you're a parent."

Now she actually does roll her eyes. "You'd probably have to find me some good suitors first."

He tries to say something back, and Moana can think of at least five different responses right now, mostly to do with how she didn't exactly make it easy to announce a search for suitors in the first place, and then once she finally did start meeting with suitors last year the first one upset her so badly she turned into the pickiest person on earth, but it's still barely dawn, and he's never that sharp in the mornings anyway.

Instead of Dad's usual dry wit Moana's instead met with the long-suffering sigh of a man feeling every single day of the last five years searching for someone his daughter could tolerate being married to.

"The things I do for grandchildren," he says.

And Moana smirks, smoothing out another tangle as she allows herself to imagine the decidedly non-magical Mini Maui on her shoulder awarding her a point.

The morning light no longer stings to look at, and she can feel the fog of sleep beginning to lift. Thoughts of bed are soon replaced by thoughts of meetings and unfinished business from the days before, and as the final bits of sleep are blinked from her eyes she almost feels like herself again.

She squints at the dew on the flowers, and frowns at the water still dripping from the eaves and down to the ground. She picks up her gaze and looks up at her father, quietly collecting the rocks keeping the mosquito curtains in place, goosebumps and scratched mosquito bites on his skin under a film of drying water, and then it's back down to the wet flowers, not wet from dew, she sees now, wet from rain.

She puts the comb away.

"Dad," she says, "were you out in the rain?"

He shrugs. "Maybe around the tail end of it," he says. "It was cold. Good time for a walk."

"Dad, it's the rainy season and it's dawn," she says. "The mosquitoes are out. You can't just keep going around when they're biting."

He's still maddenly calm and sentimental as he secures the curtains. "What would I have to fear from the rainy season?" he says. "The rainy season is a happy time, Moana. The rains bring life. The rains brought you."

"Dad."

"They did!" he says. "You were born at the start of the rainy season, Moana."

"Mom said they came a month early that year."

"So you brought them, then," he says. "Even less to worry about."

"Daaaaaaaad."

Sometimes she wishes for siblings, just so he'd have other people to fuss over.

He chuckles something low and quiet, deep in his chest, and nudges her up. "Don't take too long with that," he says. "You're leading today's council. You'll want to do a bit more than just get the tangles out of your hair."

Seriously? Council again? She knows how to lead the council by now, there isn't much point in still training to do it.

"Do I have to?" she says.

"I can't do it forever, petal," he says. "Besides, when I die—"

"You're not gonna die, Dad," she says, and the best he can do is a shrug and a noncommittal little noise by way of response.

The water continues to drip off the edges of the roof, and when she finally brings the hibiscus to wear in her hair she finds it cold, and fresh, and still wet with rain.

* * *

The council meeting is nothing outside of the usual concerns. The breadfruit, banana, and mulberry trees are coming along nicely, work continues on the village roads, and the precautions for the rainy season seem to have held up well, not as many issues with drainage or flooding as there were last time around.

"But as a precaution," Dad says, "I say we stop the quarry work, at least until the weather clears up. We already have enough surplus to get us through the first few boats of the next trading season. If we need more we can get more, but right now it won't hurt to give the workers a bit of a break."

Moana blinks before she gathers herself enough to ask around the rest of the council, taking in their nods and completely unsurprised reactions of agreement, before the decision is made to halt quarrying for now and they move onto the next order of business.

She'd forgotten about the quarries. She shouldn't beat herself up over forgetting they were still operating, since this is kind of the whole point of being in training to take over as chief, but she should've at least had that in the back of her mind somewhere. The quarries may be around the outskirts of the village but they're one of their most vital resources for trade. Without them in working order, her village would lose out on so many resources, especially in these early years when they're still growing some of their vital trees and plants. How could she overlook the quarries so badly, after all they'd done to help?

No, no, now is not the time. She's a grown woman and the next village chief. She can't just crumble in front of her people over something her father solved anyway.

She pushes aside the doubts threatening to take up all her thoughts, and asks for any more issues while they're all still gathered here.

"Palolo season is coming," Silifono, a newer member of the council, says. "We'll need more nets if we want more catches this year."

Vete, a distant relative of Moana's and one of the oldest council members, reluctantly agrees. "Oh, yes," he says, and it nearly physically pains him to be seen agreeing with the upstart council member he famously butts heads with, "not enough nets last time. Such a waste to see so many of those delicious sea worms go free."

"Okay," Moana says. "So does anyone have any suggestions for what to do about this? Can anyone suggest people who might be free to make the nets?"

Nearby her dad coughs, raising his eyebrows meaningfully in her direction. Moana frowns. Oh. Oh, she's forgotten something again. It shouldn't be this easy to forget something. Think, think—why is staying in one place so much more of a challenge than spending nearly three years risking your life voyaging and fighting monsters?

She stops.

Palolo season.

Of course.

Rainy season just started. So that means—

"We won't need many people," she says. "Not at first. The season's not for a few weeks and we have enough nets for a harvest but not a surplus. If we have more urgent business right now, that's gonna have to get priority. If we don't we can all get that over with right now."

She tries not to visibly sigh in relief when Dad nods in approval, and she tries not to smile too hard at Mom giving him a look saying to watch it, you can't just keep coaching her like this.

Tema, another one of the oldest members, clears her throat. "Well," she says, "now that you mention it—"

Moana turns to her. "Yes, Auntie?"

"Pepeu's roof collapsed during that storm the other day, the poor dear," Tema says. "Oh, she's fine, she and Teiki are staying with her sister right now, but she'll need help rebuilding. We could assign a few people to fix the roof, and have the quarry workers work on the nets."

She catches herself. "If that's what you and the chief think we should do, that is."

Moana's eyes go back to her dad quicker than she can exercise any self-control. She's leading the council, she should be the one making decisions. This is probably exactly why her father's been making her lead the council more often.

Mom's eyes widen as she registers the unspoken little communication between the two, and she nudges Dad, a gentle but firm look of warning all over her face. Dad turns back to Moana, shrugs a helpless little shrug, and gestures to Moana to make the decision herself.

Moana turns her attention to Tema and nods. "It is," she says. "We've just finished some maintenance on the dock. We should have enough free builders to fix her roof."

Tema smiles. "Thanks, Moana."

There isn't much else to discuss. Someone suggests a check of the coconut plantations to check for parasites (approved), someone else informs the others the musicians will need new instruments for palolo season (approved), and another person brings up the idea of building a guest _fale_ closer to shore in case of numerous or suspect outsiders (not denied so much as set aside for now). It's a quicker meeting than she'd expected, though with this being their third year on the island Moana's glad this just means there's enough of the village built and established that there are now some things that can take care of themselves.

Once it's clear no one else has any new business to bring up, Moana decides it's probably time to make an announcement of her own.

It's a struggle all its own to keep this general, and not just spend the whole time looking in her father's direction.

"Before we end this for today," she says, a very deliberate sweep out towards everyone gathered, "I just want to ask if everyone has mosquito curtains for the rainy season. Are there any parts of the village that might not have them?"

A brief moment of mental inventory among those gathered and a few checks with those seated next to them just in case they missed something, but the answers come back fine. Everyone in the village, as far as they know, has mosquito curtains for the season. The trade agreements brought enough tapa that the village even has a little extra in case of a bad typhoon season later this year.

Something uncoils inside Moana at the news, and despite the sense of wet still hanging in the air it's become easier to breathe. The memory comes unbidden to her, of the dancer boy Teiki's liveliness and mischief almost extinguished in the ravages of the fever, but the memory dissipates as quickly as it appears, leaving behind only a shapeless feeling of dread she can thankfully now combat. They have the materials to prevent this now. They have the healers and the training to treat this if it does happen.

She is not losing anyone here.

"All right," she says. "Well, the usual precautions, then, I'm sure you all know them by now."

Nods and murmurs of agreement from those gathered around. In the distance thunder begins to roll.

Rainy season indeed.

Moana summons up all the collected knowledge she has on how to make a decent Warrior Face, and uses it, as she so often does these days, to serve the village. Instead of a menacing scowl a calming smile, instead of a fearsome presence a voice of reason. It's a harder face to pull than one of battle, but in the years since she's cultivated this face it's one she's learned to wear it well.

She smiles.

"Good," she says. "Let's keep it up, everyone. The fever hasn't taken anyone yet and we're not going to let it start now."

And she sits pleasantly amid the cheerful goodbyes and the small comments of congratulations on yet another productive council meeting, trying not to think of the thunder in the distance and the smell of rain still lingering in the air. She keeps her eyes on Tema as her grandchildren help her down the steps and Silifono as he saunters out and in the direction of the houses of the quarry workers, and decidedly not on the mosquito bites her father's had for days and is still having a hard time resisting the urge to scratch.

Dad's quiet, nearly shy, when he asks Moana if she could help him down the stairs as well. "My knees seem to be acting up," he says. "Might've overdone it yesterday with the road work."

Moana winces at the wet stone stairs, still dripping with the last bits of rain coming off the edges of the council _fale_ roof. "Anything wrong, Dad?"

He shrugs. "It'll clear up," he says, and she thinks nothing of it, until they've reached the bottom of the steps and he nearly flinches.

Mom's Warrior Face doesn't so much as budge for even a second.

"I knew the council was holding something back when they arranged this marriage," she says, as she links his arm with hers. "Look at him, ageing before my eyes, while I'm cursed to stay young and beautiful. How's that fair? I thought I was supposed to be marrying up." Dad's smile softens as it so often does around her, and it's an extra second before Mom turns to once again regard Moana. "I'll take it from here, Moana. Your father and I will go to the builders. You go talk to the quarry workers."

And Moana, despite her stomach beginning to coil and the shapeless dread coming back as if to say it wasn't done, nods, and smirks just as convincingly as her mother does.

Mom's right, she has to remind herself as she watches them head off. Dad's just getting to that age now, and joint pain runs in the family. That's it. That's all. That's it.

She's worrying over nothing.

* * *

"Halfway!" Moana crows, grinning at the bounty of flowers in her basket: night jasmine, small and beautifully fragrant flowers best picked at night and which in the light of tonight's moon seem to almost glow softly white. She wipes off the sweat from the night's work in smothering humidity and breathes in the flower scent with a wicked glee. It smells sweet. It smells of victory.

From nearby, a sound nearly muffled by the sea below and a rush of harried rustles. It's Dad's little grunt of frustration, small but audible, as he struggles to keep apace in their little flower picking contest.

Moana looks up in his direction, grinning. "And what about you, Dad?"

The rustling stops, and she giggles at the glare she can nearly physically feel piercing through her.

She grins harder, her attention back on the bush of soft white flowers still waiting to be picked. "I didn't hear an update."

His little humph is one of indignation and outrage. "You will take pity on your poor suffering aged father, Moana."

"So," she says, "five flowers, then."

"How did I raise a child capable of such cruelty."

She stifles back the flood of laughter threatening to bubble and burst out of her.

"No, no, you're right, you're faster than that," she says. "Ten flowers."

And there is a brief silence before there is a resigned little huff of laughter, and the rustling continues.

Moana wipes off more of the sweat, and snaps off a couple more blossoms.

"C'mon, Dad," she says. "How much of your basket? You've picked flowers off volcano peaks, there's no way I'm winning already."

There is the sound, over on his end of the little clearing, of a flower sluggishly picked from its stem.

There's a response caught somewhere between being a grumble and a sigh."Maybe that's a job for a younger man, now."

Moana rolls her eyes.

"Dad," she says, "you can totally still pick flowers off volcanoes. Don't feel bad just because I'm winning."

"I don't," he says. "I'm just—"

He stops, and he yawns, and whatever else he had to add to that sentence is gone.

Moana puts away her basket—about half a small basket's worth is good enough for their needs right now anyway—and makes her way towards her father.

"All right," she says, "let's head on home. You're tired, and I'm not taking a win unless it's a fair fight."

When she does reach his end of the small patch of night jasmine crop he's blinking, and tired, and it's hard to make out the finer details in his expression but this is definitely not the look of a man engaging in one of his favourite pastimes with his only child.

She wishes the moon were fuller. She wishes she could see with her own eyes that he's all right and she's just being paranoid.

She clutches her basket tighter. "Dad?"

His sigh is laboured, nearly shuddering. "We don't have to stop for me," he says. "It's cold tonight. That's probably what's throwing me off. Look, it's made my fingers all stiff."

No. No no no no—

"Dad," Moana says. "What do you mean, cold?"

Dad rolls his eyes as he takes a deep, shivering breath. "Come on, Moana, it's freezing," he says. "You're a wayfinder; tell me you can't feel that wind."

She can't.

The wind's usual desperate howls and swirls are little more than a suggestion of a breeze right now, and the air even up here in the hills by the sea is heavy with hot humidity, slowing it down even further. If anything she's sweating.

Her stomach coils and twists in on itself, finding a way to sink to the bottom of her, ready to just fall out any second now. As she steps closer she swallows, despite the dryness in her throat, and tries not to remember the image of Teiki, pale and shivering on his bedroll, his mother holding his hand as she choked back tears.

"Dad," she ventures, barely brushing against him as she bids him to put down his basket. He almost shudders at the touch, and it's all she can do not to give into the urge to panic right now. "Dad, are you feeling okay?"

It doesn't take a wayfinder's trained eyes to see he's the furthest thing from it right now. He begins to nod, only to stop, and rub at the space between his eyebrows. "Maybe we should call it a night."

"Dad?"

She has to reach up to touch his forehead, and when the thing just near scalds her she winces and brings her hand up to touch his forehead again.

This can't be happening. Not with Dad. Not now.

The second time that forehead threatens to incinerate her she can swear she feels the pain go straight to her heart.

"Moana?" he says. "What is it, petal?"

She swallows, despite the dryness in her throat. The baskets balance precariously in the crook of one arm while her other arm links with his.

She tries not to think too hard about the goosebumps against her skin, the shuddering breaths and the unsure footing of his steps.

"We need to go back home."

* * *

Mom's the one who has to keep them all calm, as she tends to be whenever the two of them start getting carried away with anything. When they arrive back home, Dad nearly swaying from lightheadedness and Moana's arm and shoulder nearly sore from leading him all the way uphill, whatever alarm there is in Mom's eyes isn't there long enough for any of them to see. The Warrior Face is on as soon as she sees what's going on, and she's got the bedroll out and the extra sturdy pillow down while all Dad's attention goes into not just flopping onto the plain stone floor and all Moana's attention goes into keeping him awake.

It's a focused, fierce determination when she checks Dad's temperature, a deliberate detachment when she asks, "How long's he been like this?"

Moana has to shake her head to get back into the moment. "Not long," she says. "Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, including the walk back up from the jasmine crops. He was fine until a few minutes until we had to leave."

Dad, holding back another shiver, groans. "I can still talk, you know."

"Moana, help your dad onto bed."

She does, although the size difference does make it easier said than done. Dad just about wilts as soon as bed is a viable option, and Moana is suddenly grateful for all those adventures with Maui keeping her from being completely useless as she navigates wobbly legs and a vulnerable head down to a safe lying position. She'd seen Maui bleed, she'd seen him poisoned, and she'd seen him cursed. Not to mention, as part of the family of the village's highest chief, she had visited countless villagers in their time of sickness, some of them with the fever. None of this should strike her as anything even vaguely new.

But as she gently places her father's head into the groove of the bamboo pillow and double-checks to see if its legs aren't on anything too wobbly, she can't help but feel something about her world shift the slightest bit, enough that the off-kilter rhythm made everything strange and almost unreal.

Dad squeezes her arm in thanks, and she's barely finished placing a tapa blanket on him when Mom tells her to go get water and fetch the healers.

Moana's hand refuses to let go of her dad's. "But Mom, I can't just leave him."

"I know, minnow, I know," Mom says, softness in her voice for the first time since they came back, "but someone has to go. You're faster, and you get around better at night. Besides, this just started. No fever works that quickly. He'll be here when you get back."

It hurts to nod and agree, even if she is completely right.

She shouldn't still find so much comfort at the touch of Mom's hand cradling her face.

"Your dad needs to stay hydrated, Moana," she says. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on him. It might not be the fever but it's still something we need to keep an eye on, do you understand?"

"It's not the fever," Dad groans, holding the blanket closer to him.

"He's sick, he's not thinking straight," Mom says, and turns back to Moana. "Go."

It's all she can do to keep from staring at the mosquito bites on her father's skin. It's all she can do to fight back the image of him in Teiki's place, growing weaker and more lifeless as the fever takes hold, the cold and the wet from the rain doing everything they can to stack the odds even further in death's favour. It's all she can do to hold back a sob. "Mom—" she says.

" _Go_."

There's one last squeeze of her father's hand, the barest hint of a _hongi_ , before she's bolting out of the house and towards the medical _fale_ , as quickly as her feet can take her.

* * *

As daughter of the chief, Moana had probably been on visits to every sick person in her community, both in her old village and in her new. It was the thing among her people, though not surprising for a people isolated for so long. Everyone looked out for everyone else, and royalty visited the sick with some food and words of encouragement in their time of need. So sickness was nothing new to her, and enough time spent overhearing the healers as they did their work meant she wasn't completely clueless by the time Maui had started her training on handling illness during voyaging.

That never meant it wouldn't still upset her every single time.

Teiki was—Teiki _is_ —one of the village's most promising prospects for the future of the artform of dance. Born the son of a drummer and a dancer, it came of no surprise to anyone when he took to the artform at an early age. It was even less of a surprise that he was _good_ , managing to keep up with the advanced dancers and even making up strange new moves and routines all his own. He had a bit of a trickster streak, and as he grew older a bit of a habit of flirting with everyone he met, but overall he was a good kid, always willing to tutor those who had trouble with their routines and always the first person to try to lighten up a bad situation. It hit Moana harder than it should when he came down with the fever.

If it happened on Motunui it would've been a shame but it would've been just another instance of the fever making its rounds across the village. They would curse at fate and curse at their misfortune but they would do what they could and hope for the best. But it happened on their new island, in their new village, and despite everyone's insistence that it was just bad luck Moana knew it happened because she didn't think to bring enough tapa for spare mosquito curtains for the village's first few years.

The trees needed to make tapa needed humans to spread. She knew that from her years travelling with Maui. They also took years to grow. She knew that from her entire life spent around the plantations. She knew. She knew. And she should have planned.

So when the fever struck during the village's first rainy season, when she arrived at Teiki and his mother's little _fale_ to find small pools of water all around and a distinct lack of mosquito curtains in the rafters, all she could see was the preventable death of one of the village's youngest residents.

The fever works quickly, announcing itself as soon as it begins to take effect. It's the one kindness it gives, before you sit and watch helplessly as it does its work. Only the truly unlucky die from it before the fever itself kicks in.

Teiki, unfortunately, was nearly among them.

There are times, rare times, when the fever starts its attack before you have a chance to know what's going on. Symptoms that would otherwise be treated right away are shrugged off as the effects of the rainy season. Sluggishness tended to come with the humidity and the pleasing cool that came afterwards, it was nothing to worry about. Aching joints could simply be overindulging in certain foods, or the effects of age. A lack of energy? Could really be anything. The thing that tipped you off, that let you know what you were up against was the fever itself, and when it did its work in silent, when it scouted ahead and cleared the land before declaring its presence, by the time the patient's temperature rose it was too late.

Teiki had complained lately of pains during dance rehearsals and lessons, but as a dancer that was just part of the job, made all the more common thanks to his love of seafood and cooked pig's blood. No one thought much of it until one day, in the middle of a remedial lesson for some of the older but less skilled dancers, he collapsed.

Water and healers came right away, and soon enough he was shivering in bed, clutching as many blankets as he could close to him as he gazed out into nothing.

The fever had barely announced itself by the time Moana was sent to offer the support and well wishes of the chief's family. Teiki's mother Pepeu, barely a year after losing her husband to the flu, could barely move to acknowledge Moana's presence and small offering of food, distracted as she was by Teiki's slips in and out of consciousness.

"How is he?" Moana asked, placing the basket to one side as she sat beside Pepeu.

The _hongi_ was quick and half-hearted.

Pepeu had swallowed, blinking back tears as she smiled. "The fever's hit. So that's good, right?"

The smile didn't stay long.

"He's—" Pepeu said, "It means now it's just rest and hydration. He can start to recover."

Moana had opened a drinking nut from the basket to help him drink. Pepeu held his head up.

"It's the best we can hope for," Moana said. "I'm sorry about this. The chief's family would like to extend their best wishes for his recovery."

She swallowed again as Teiki sluggishly took in the water, wiped off the excess liquid with a shaking hand. When Moana could finally summon the strength to really look and see how her former dance student was doing, the near silence of the room was broken by a stifled sob.

Pepeu shook her head, stroking her son's hair out of a lack of anything else to do.

"Are you—?" Moana hated these visits, she really did. "Would you like me to leave?"

But she continued like Moana hadn't said a thing.

"We should've stayed with my sister," she said. "She had a mosquito curtain. We could've shared until the end of the season."

As right as she would've been to just tell Pepeu this sort of thinking won't do anything to help the situation as it was, she couldn't do it, not when she was there regretting almost the same things. If she'd thought to pack more, if she'd thought to suggest larger extended households for now until they'd had enough supplies to allow splits into smaller family groups, if—

Not that any of that could help Teiki now. But what else was there to do, other than make sure he got rest and liquids? Worrying and regretting at least made it feel like you were doing something, and right then she felt like doing something. After all, what else was there to do?

She visited every day with food. Some days he would be almost normal, talking to her, and if he was feeling especially good maybe a bit of courtesy flirting, letting Moana know if she ever changes her mind about traditional marriage and political alliances the offer's always there.

"All I want to lead's the dancers," he'd say, his voice cracking spectacularly as he'd deliver a masterful wink. "You got no coup coming from me."

It'd be funny—adorable, even—to watch her former student, still just a kid with so much to look forward to, propose over and over and only partially as a joke. She'd roll her eyes and laugh and let herself see this as a sign of hope, but then a new wave of fatigue would take over, and he would lay back down, wincing as he'd hold his blankets closer to him, his mother's heart breaking as she would check his temperature and find that the fever was still as high as it ever was. The first three days that tended to happen whenever the fever hit, and then the next day, and the next day, and—

She forgets how long it was exactly, but she does remember it was raining the day his temperature finally dropped, and raining again a few days later, when it looked like they were going to lose him.

The fever's final little trick, the cruelty to make up for the usual courtesy of announcing its presence right away, was to make the lowered temperatures the most terrifying stage of the illness.

The fever leaving meant recovery. It could also mean death, and that your body was finally too weak to bother fighting anymore. And you would never know until it was too late.

Moana arrived to find Pepeu and her sister sat next to Teiki's sleeping form, his breathing so slow she could barely make it out at all.

He had been too tired to talk or move the past couple of days. One of the most energetic people in both the old and the new villages, and now even breathing had become a challenge.

Neither woman noticed Moana greet them or enter the _fale_ , so engrossed they were in the pale, nearly deathly still boy lying before them. Pepeu had held his limp hand, trembling as she'd gently stroke at the soft curls on his head. Her sister held her close, for all the good that could do right now.

Moana had gently placed the food and water in a nearby space in the rafters and was about to leave when she heard it.

Her voice shaking through the imminent tears, Pepeu asked her son to let go.

"You can rest now, my heart," she'd said, "if you want to." And for all the anguish in the sharp sob that followed Moana could hear a smile in Pepeu's voice. "You tried so hard. You don't need to fight anymore if you can't."

The last thing Moana could remember of that visit was the lack of mosquito curtain in the rafters, and the sound of rain dripping off the eaves.

* * *

It rains the night her father falls ill. It's barely a drizzle when the healers arrive to check on him and it's pouring by the time they leave with the usual instructions to wait a few days and keep him rested and as hydrated and fed as they can manage.

For the first time in years Mom sleeps on a separate mat from her husband, sharing Moana's mosquito curtain as Dad shivers alone in his own separate curtain. One of the usual precautions. You kept the infected away from the mosquitoes that could spread the disease even further.

Not that he has it. It could be too early to tell.

But just in case.

Moana doesn't feel the almost overwhelming heat that comes with sleeping protected by a mosquito curtain. She doesn't take any comfort in the usual sound of Dad snoring gently into his bedroll.

But she does hear the rain outside, and the drip of water along the sides of the _fale_.

She doesn't sleep that night.

* * *

The coiled, uneasy feeling that had taken residence in her stomach ever since the day of the council had still, despite her repeated attempts to remove it, yet to vacate the premises. As a result the rest of her coils in around it, and she's staring off into nothing, hoping in vain that the darkness around her would at least bring the feeling of a dreamless rest. It doesn't, and she loses count of the number of times she closes her eyes and tries to force sleep. Her chest tightens, her thoughts muddle into a shapeless, nameless dread, and she's not sure how long her world has been a dark fog, but she knows it's too late to try to get some rest when her mother stirs beside her, and opens the mosquito curtain.

The breeze wakes her up enough to clear some of the fog. Moana stretches out to find her muscles more tensed than she'd expected, and blinks to find her eyes more sluggish than she'd thought. There's a silent yawn, and quick reassuring stroke along Pua's sleeping head before she forces herself up.

Mom doesn't comb her hair the way she tends to do whenever she wakes up, her treasured bit of alone time before her husband and daughter awaken and complain about how early life in the village starts. Moana would catch her sometimes, quiet and peaceful, usually on the outer steps watching the stars begin to fade.

But today she heads straight for Dad's mosquito curtain, striding with purpose as if she'd been awake for hours. The tapa is pushed aside with ease and she doesn't even blink at the scattered stones formerly keeping the curtain in place. Those are in a neat pile before Moana can get up to help her, and before she knows it Mom is sitting beside him, checking his temperature.

She's about to get up and ask when Mom announces it anyway.

"Still high, if you were wondering," she says, loud enough for Moana to hear.

Moana's wincing when she draws back the curtain to join her.

"How'd you know I was awake?" she says.

Mom doesn't look at her as strokes back his hair, double-checks his temperature. "Your hair's not a mess," she says. "You didn't sleep last night."

She can't even find it in herself to pretend to be shocked at her mother's powers of observation. It was stuff like this that made people wonder if she was some sort of secret demigoddess.

The pillow is shoved aside, as it tends to be, as Dad had sometime in his sleep decided he was much more comfortable with his face planted firmly in the weave of his bedroll. There's a hint of a smile as Mom strokes back some of his hair, shaking her head at his choice in sleeping position, before the Warrior Face is back on.

"He'll need water," she says. "Bring some of the drinking nuts over here, will you, Moana?"

She does.

"And you're going to have to help me bring him to the toilet _fale_ before you leave for the day," she says. "Remind me to call your Auntie Tafi over to help watch him."

What?

"I," she says, "I thought maybe I could just stay here today. Since he's sick."

She shakes her head, and looks up for the first time since she'd opened the curtain. The Warrior Face doesn't slip for a second, and she's smiling, the very vision of sage reassurance. She gestures for Moana to come closer, and when she does Mom's hand is cradling her by the side of the face, and Moana finds herself fighting a tightness in her chest and the urge to blink back tears.

"It's the first day," Mom says. "This could still just be a regular fever."

Moana wishes she could believe that. She wishes she could get the memory out of her head that his joints had started aching before his temperature rose. How long ago was the council meeting, two, three days ago?

"But Mom," she says, "what if it's not?"

Mom's eyes dart back to him, and it's back to the vision of calm and reassurance.

"Someone still has to run the village," she says.

And the nameless, shapeless dread finds a way to curl around Moana's heart, as she imagines the pillow set aside forever, the bedroll permanently replaced with one that can accommodate one person, a necklace of whale teeth reverently placed around her neck for the first time as she finally loses her title as daughter of the chief.

She lays a tentative hand on what of her father's forehead she can touch. Barely a second touching him and it's still so hot it's almost scalding. She winces.

No. It's fine. It's fine. It's still the first day. No need to jump to any conclusions.

"He's trained you for this your whole life, Moana," Mom says. "You can do this. It'll just be today."

Moana swallows, before she gives a slow nod.

She hopes it is.

* * *

This being the people formerly of Motunui, Moana's not surprised to find that the news spread fast. Those who don't avoid her gaze give their sympathies and well wishes as she passes them by, all hope that it's nothing serious and that the chief will be back on his feet in no time. They mean it, she knows they do, but she's had a Warrior Face of her own long enough that she can spot one when she sees one. The smiles of reassurance do nothing to stop her noticing that the village has gone quiet, and the usually busy area near the main entrance of the chief's home is deserted, the usual way of things whenever a chief would be gravely ill or expected to die.

It's a courtesy, she has to remind herself. He only fell ill last night. They just want to give Dad some quiet so he can rest. It's not the custom of keeping clear the entrance to a dead chief's _fale_.

She readjusts her headdress and enters the medical _fale_ to talk to the healers, trying not to think of how none of its flowers were picked by her father's hands.

* * *

Barely three years ago they had landed on a brand new island freshly pulled up from the sea, struggling to merely build the bones of a village. Moana swears she's blinked and suddenly they've not only built everything, they're not only trading, but they've now built so much and gotten so good at the trading that their _second_ trade hall now needs an expansion. Or it seems to, according to those most familiar with them.

The dock workers shift in front of her, a couple of them fidgeting, a few glancing at the piles of stock and surplus, a few even daring to look at Moana directly as they wait for her answer.

The glance to her side is unconscious and a bad habit she's been trying to grow out of anyway, but it stings nonetheless to find no one there.

She gathers herself.

Her parents trust her to run the village without them. Now is as good a time as any to at least get the hang of it before she has to do it for real.

She sets her jaw, and turns back to the dock workers.

"Trading season is over," she says. "There aren't any more imports coming in until next year. What we have for now will do until we have enough free builders for an expansion."

The dock workers glance at each other, worried.

"But I'll bring this up at the conference next year," she says. "Chief Mori would probably appreciate freeing up his weavers from making so many sails. We'll find something else to trade. What do we need more of?"

There's more shifting, a little more fidgeting and a few more glances, before one of them speaks up.

"We could do with more hibiscus skirts," he says. "Bit hard to keep up with the demand now that we've got these new villagers coming in."

Moana nods. "Their village has those. I can get approval from the council to change the agreements. That'll be quick; they don't usually argue much over the trade deals. You're welcome to come to the next council meeting to make your case," she says. "For now, we can move the spare sails to near the boat sheds."

The dock workers glance at the sails and consider it. There's a brief moment of discussion before they turn back to her and nod. "We can do that," another says.

"Good," Moana says, and watches as they make their way towards the tall piles of sails. "Oh, by the way, can someone make sure to bring some water over to my dad?"

"You got it, Moana!"

Okay.

Okay.

She can do this.

It's just one small task of countless small tasks, but this is a good start.

For the first time in days, something uncoils in her stomach, and she breathes with ease.

* * *

The fishermen report a boat sunk on the reef. One of the trainees, they explain. The kid still needs to get his head around the very simple concept of not capsizing the boat during a simple turn. Moana can't bring herself to punish him for something she herself did so long ago so she decides to let this one go.

"We can make another," she says. "I'm just glad to know you're all okay."

There's a spare mature breadfruit tree they can use for the hull. In the meantime they'll have to sort out a rotation on their existing boats. If they still need any more boats after that the village is going to have to trade for them next year now that the rains have come and trading season is over.

They're barely done thanking her when word reaches her that the coconut groves near the boatyard need her attention and she's hiking her skirts and thankful she chose hibiscus instead of tapa today as she tracks through the mud to see what the matter is now.

"Coconut worms," Silifono is none too pleased to report.

Apparently his request to check on all the trees turned up something: the telltale fat, wriggling larvae of the beetles that make it their mission to devour the most vulnerable coconut trees from the inside. These beetles usually laid eggs in already sick trees and seemed to come in to finish the job, and once there were no more sick or vulnerable trees to eat, move onto the healthier crop. Not just any tree, they preferred the coconut specifically. Her people's food, their weaving material, their kindling, their temporary roof thatch, the source of all those and so many more things. If she didn't control this soon these little worms could ruin everything she worked so hard to build.

She did not break a goddess's curse just to watch her people be defeated by a parasite.

Silifono has a husker show her a small basket of the writhing, wriggling things just in case she doesn't believe them.

Moana frowns.

"How many trees?" she says.

"Three so far," Silifono says. "All sick, no signs of them in the healthy ones. But it's the rains. They speed up any rot problems. If we don't curb this now they're going to be eating their fair bit of the grove."

"Can they be saved?"

"It's in the early stages," the husker says. "Once we clear the worms the trees should be able to make a full recovery."

"Okay," Moana says. "Hand out the worms to anyone who wants to eat them and keep an eye out for any more. I'm not losing this grove."

"Yes, Moana."

No sooner is she done with that when Silifono asks, "How's Pepeu's roof coming along, by the way?"

Her eyes widen and there's a soft "oh no" at the realisation that she completely forgot, and before she can even let this decision sink in she's excusing herself to run all the way back to the village proper to check on just that.

* * *

It's exhausting. She's exhausted.

Leaving home around dawn wasn't enough. Sprinting from place to place wasn't enough. Skipping her daytime meal so she could check on the progress of the roof wasn't enough. She could've been a demigoddess with unimaginable powers helping people constantly without sleeping and there still would've been something more to deal with, some conflict that needed defusing, some new problem that would haunt her until it was fixed. She has no idea how her parents did it while also raising a child. She has no idea how her parents could've kept up with this pace if there continued to be no one to help share the load.

How did a village that's already built find a way to get even more hectic after the ordeal that was its construction? It's almost enough to make her just pick the next suitor who comes by and pop out a few heirs just to spread the work out a bit more. By the end of the day her skirts are filthy from mud and her feet ache from being in constant use, and she's pretty sure her brain's gone to sleep well before she has any plans to.

But she's not spent, she's not drained, until she trudges up the main road of the chief's family compound, and she sees the lights of home.

She's been taking care of Dad, sure, in what capacity she can. She's sent someone back home every couple of hours to bring over more water. She's asked everyone she's helped if they've heard anything new in the past few hours, any updates on his condition. The healers were the first people she visited before she went on to check on the village in general. She wasn't _home_ but it's not like she wasn't helping.

She _was_.

She _is_.

She doesn't just … leave people she can help. That's not right. That's not her.

So why does the thought of going home make her need to find some new problem to deal with instead?

Her stomach coils in on itself as she reaches the entrance to find it still clear.

And she steps inside to find Mom and her older sister Tafi sat next to Dad's sleeping form, his breathing so slow Moana can barely make it out at all.

* * *

It's the fever.

The healers confirm it when they come to check back in on him at dawn. It's the fever, and by the looks of it he's had it at least since the last council meeting. It could've been longer. If the fever had chosen to show itself even a day or two from now, it would've been too late to get him any treatment. They're lucky it spiked when it did.

Moana fights back a tightness in her throat and the sudden urge to scream. There needs to be something to blame. There needs to be something to fight. The rains, the fever, Dad's insufferable, reckless need to be out in picking flowers at dawn. There needs to be something she can actually do to help, to fix this. Now.

She didn't cross the sea, she didn't clear it of monsters, to watch her father taken down by the rains.

She can't watch him the same way she watched the fever nearly take Teiki.

Auntie Tafi, Mom's older sister who had stayed the night, lets her eyes slip shut, and it's like she's felt every hour she's been here, watching Dad, and helping Mom stay strong.

Mom barely even flinches at the news.

Her jaw sets and her eyes harden when she asks, "Is there anything else we can do?"

Tiale, the senior healer, shakes her head. "Rest, fluids, and food, I'm afraid. There's not much else outside of the waiting," she says. "But you've been wonderful, Sina, really. All of you. Chief Tui couldn't ask for better carers. He's in good hands."

Mom nods, determined as ever. The lamp light flickers on her skin as she strokes back the hair from Dad's face.

"There's been no complications?" Tiale says. "No bleeding in the gums, no rapid breathing?"

Mom pauses, before she continues stroking his hair. "No," she says. "He vomited a couple times, though. He said his head hurt."

"That's normal," Tiale says. "We'll be by to check on him tonight."

Mom nods.

"Thank you, Tiale," she says. "Before dinner, if you can make it."

"It's no problem," Tiale says. "We'll show ourselves out."

The _hongi_ goodbye are quick and impersonal, and as soon as the healers leave Mom is back to check on his temperature as if they'd never come at all.

Moana's about to ask if she's okay when Mom just says, "Moana, go fetch more water."

"Mom—"

Auntie Tafi lays a gentle hand on Moana's shoulder, and on her face is the gentleness Moana had missed in her mother the past couple of days. "He'll be fine, Moana," she says. "Your dad's a fighter, he's not gonna let a little fever get him."

A fever, no, Moana wants to say.

But this is not just any fever.

She wishes he weren't such a late riser. She's not sure she's spoken to him since the night his temperature rose.

"I know, Auntie," she says instead.

"Moana," Mom calls from Dad's side. "You heard the healers, minnow. He needs to stay hydrated."

Moana yawns, and nods. "Okay, Mom."

Auntie Tafi can't do much more than shrug and shoot her a private smile. Your mom's worried, it's saying. Don't take it personally.

"Your aunt's helping me watch him today," Mom says. "Can you handle running the village again?"

Moana pauses.

Can she?

The sun is rising. It almost feels too late to get started on the day's work. Can she handle all the village's little problems, can she handle making all its big decisions, without her parents or her best friend and all his thousands of years of wisdom to help guide her?

But it's not exactly her choice to make. Someone does have to run the village, and this wasn't a request.

She nods. "I can handle it."

"Good," Mom says, and begins to once again stroke back his hair.

If Mom's the voice of reason at times like these, her sister is the voice of comfort. Auntie Tafi's hand is back on Moana's shoulder, and her gentle smile is almost enough to fight off the cold of the morning breeze.

"It'll just be one more day," she says.

And Moana wishes she could believe them.

She steps outside to find the entrance to the chief's _fale_ still left clear, and quiet, water dripping off the eaves and in the distance, even the birds not as active as usual.

She doesn't just leave people she can help. But there's … not much she can do here, is there? There's nothing she can fight, there's no quests she can take, and there's only so much she can do to help watch him. She can help her dad by dealing with the things he can't, just like she helped her grandmother by going on the mission she couldn't do.

That's how she could fight this, right? That's how she could do her part?

She'd expected to feel worse when she's far enough that home is little more than another house in the distance.

Instead her stomach settles, the tightness in her throat and the sob in her chest fade, and it becomes easier to breathe.

* * *

One more day turns into another, then another, and Moana's not sure exactly how long it's been but she does know it's long enough that it's lost all sense of being anything even remotely new. It's just how things are now. She checks up on Dad, helps out a bit, and then it's out just after dawn to run the village, asking for Dad's condition and sending over water and food the whole time, until it's time to head back home to bring even more water and gather some of the boys to cook dinner. It's normal. It shouldn't be, but it is.

In practice, being chief isn't that different from the duties her parents had gradually eased her into. She's solving a lot of the same problems, resolving a lot of the same arguments, and presiding the council in much the same way she'd presided over it for maybe six years now. It's fine. It took a bit of adjusting but it's fine. The village isn't falling apart. In many ways it's the same as it's always been. In fact she might actually have the hang of being chief. She can do this. She can lead.

But then a problem would pop up that she can't make a decision on right away, or a detail would come up that she'd forgotten about, and she'd glance to the side in an infuriating force of habit, and find no one there.

And her stomach would coil, and the cold of the rains would snake her way down her spine, and she'd remember why she's leading alone. She remembers she will return to a clear entrance to her home and that one day she really won't have anyone to make sure she's making the right calls.

She learns to keep her eyes on the people before her. It's easier that way.

Which is just as well, because as rewarding as this is, it's hard enough without having to worry about … everything else going on.

In her time leading Fa'anui alone, she had overseen the repairs of a few broken pig pens, personally climbed the diseased trees of coconut grove near the boatyard to make sure they had cleared every tree of coconut worms, gotten a fair number of nets made for palolo season, negotiated a rotation of fishing boats to make up for the loss on the reef, and set up a council on what to do about the trade halls. Among countless other things.

The work never ends. It piles in on itself faster than she can hope to finish it all and everything, _everything_ , is urgent.

And yet, she has to admit, quietly and just to herself, it beats staying home and just … sitting there, watching, wishing she could do more to actually help.

It's Teiki who relays the message this time, sidling up to her to lean casually as he can against a house post as Moana checks on the progress of his family's roof.

"You can probably guess, can you," he says.

She can. It's been an uncannily appropriate messenger each time, one that just so happened to have something to do with whatever she happened to be working on near the end of the day.

She sighs. "Mom wants me home?"

There's an apologetic shrug and smile. "'Fraid to say," he says, his voice just starting to settle down from the spectacular cracking of the years before. "Sina says he's been looking for you, too."

Moana swallows. "And his fever?"

"Still high," Teiki says, and then winks. "Though that never stopped me proposing to you, eh?"

Any other subject and she'd have rolled her eyes and smiled, wondering how long he'd wait this time until he proposed yet again.

"Go talk to him," Teiki says. "We can handle ourselves a couple hours."

She looks back up at the shrinking hole in the nearly repaired roof, all the better to keep her Warrior Face from slipping.

There needs to be something she can do. There needs to be something she can fix.

"I'm going to go check on the tapa stocks," she says. "You two need a new mosquito curtain."

Even from her peripheral vision she can feel Teiki's casual lean dissolve as he looks back at her in concern.

"Moana, that can wait, can't it?" he says. "We're staying with my aunt. We won't need a curtain until this roof's done."

But she's already on her way to the nearest storage room. "It'll just be a few minutes. I'll be over to help with dinner."

"Moana—"

"Tell Mom I'm sending over more water, okay?" she says. "Been making sure the healers do their thing."

* * *

She hates the rainy season.

The winds die and the storms come. The sea she had only just started started being able to explore once again becomes off limits, lest she invite a lost boat or two and at least a couple lost lives. The air when it isn't freezing cold and biting with the whips of the winds from over the hills is hot, and wet, hanging over her like an eternal mist that threatens to drain her of all her sweat. Mosquitoes hang thick in the air, trees grow fuzzy with fungus and black with rot, stagnant water begins to crust over with a green film that makes the water unfit for drinking, and always, always, the mud, when it's not the floods. The rainy season is miserable, and deadly, and it smells of the decay and death that tends to come with it. She has no idea what her father sees in the worst time of the year.

Moana shifts, trying to focus on Pua's soft breathing and not on the sound of rain outside the house, softly falling into shallow puddles and drumming gently onto their roof before dripping off the eaves.

She tries covering her ears, for all the good that will do.

It's just hard to block it out with the mosquito curtain—

Open.

Moana blinks at the breeze coming in and rolls to the other side to find that, yes, it does look like the curtain's open, pushed aside as it is so it looks like Mom—Moana peers into the darkness, and finds no one else in the curtain with her—and Auntie Tafi can check on him.

It doesn't feel like dawn yet. Did Dad need to go to the toilet _fale_ in the middle of the night?

Moana gets up to step outside and—

His curtain's secure. They've put the rocks back on the edges to keep it shut, and there doesn't seem to be anyone inside. She strains to adjust to the moonlight when she spots figures seated at the entrance, Mom's silhouette hunched over as Auntie Tafi lays a tired arm over her shoulders.

Is—Is Mom crying?

"This could be a good sign, Sina," she says. Moana can't see her face from here but there's a smile in her voice that doesn't ring quite true. "His temperature falling could be good."

Alone with her sister, there's no one Mom needs to be strong for. The Warrior Face is set aside for now, and the detached monotone of the past few days is nowhere to be found.

Mom speaks with a quiet shakiness Moana hasn't heard since the night she left to restore the Heart.

"But what if it's not, Tafi?" she says.

There's a sniffle and a shaky breath and all it does is invite even shakier breathing, and soft, barely stifled sobs.

"What if I lose him?"

Auntie Tafi shuffles closer, and holds Mom like she would one of her kids, stroking her hair and hugging her tight. Mom melts against her, and the sobs flow freely, muffled by the rain. Auntie Tafi shushes and soothes her, whatever soft words of comfort she has too soft for Moana to hear over the rain and the tears.

Moana fights back the sobs threatening to come up in her as well. She fights back the memory of watching her friend's mother break down into tears. She fights back the need to actually go out and find something to physically fight.

Because she has to do something. She has to help. She's about to step in and join them when Mom's breathing eases, and she wipes her face.

"Don't—Don't tell Moana, okay?" Mom says. "I don't want her to worry."

"Of course, sis."

She sniffles, and leans against her. "Thanks."

The sisters sit in silence, leaning against each other the way Moana imagined they did when they were younger, before marriage and family and life came in and made everything more complicated.

And Moana retreats back into the mosquito curtain, listening to the rain continuing to pour, seemingly without end.

She has to sleep. She needs the comfort of the void before she wakes up to face another day of … all this, some time to forget that the morning will see a clear entrance, and the return of Mom's Warrior Face, and a headdress with flowers she's picked herself.

She hates the rainy season.

* * *

The easy period could only have gone on for so long. No sooner does she fix one problem than more pop up. Another tree is sick and the worms have come back, not just in the newly sick tree but in the ones that were sick before, the rains coming in and doing everything they can to speed along the rot. One of the roads is flooded, and the way down without it is slippery and dangerous. They'll lose access to a farm plot if they don't come up with an alternate route soon.

She's squinting through the rain and trying to find anywhere with flatter land and fewer rocks, but it's pouring, and no sooner can she describe the route to the farmers than one of council member Vete's sons comes up and asks where the nets are.

"Palolo season is coming, Moana," the son, also called Vete, says. "Dad just wanted me to remind you."

She tries not to panic when she realises she's completely forgotten.

"Vete, we're a little busy here."

"I know, I know!" he says. "But it's still coming, Moana, and if we want good catches this year we need nets."

"I know."

"Not long until the full moon."

"I know, Vete," she says. "How many more nets, do you think?"

"Than the ones you've already made? Five, seven more?" he says. "When you have the time, Moana. I just needed to remind you."

"I'll see what I can do," she says, and as he leaves she almost wants to laugh.

Time. Like she has any to spare.

Like anyone else does.

Maybe she can't do this yet. Maybe she's not ready.

She's soaking through and trudging to find another dress to wear when word reaches her that another grove has started seeing coconut worms. And on the way to _that_ grove as she passes by the healers and asks about Dad's condition the conversation turns to them discussing a new case of the fever in the village proper: Huali, Moana's most skilled navigator. And not just her, someone else seems to be showing signs of coming down with it too. Not to mention the coughs starting up near the coast.

There are problems. There are always more problems. And the rains are doing nothing but making it all worse. They're all getting sick, their most vulnerable crops are infested, their roads are flooding and their people are tired, and just when she's checking on Pepeu's roof repairs the message comes back from Teiki, swaggering and apologetic as he smirks and leans against the most convenient pole.

Moana barely stifles a growl as he shrugs and asks her to guess what it is this time.

"Mom wants me home?"

Another helpless shrug.

"He's up," he says. "He wants to see you."

She's soaking, she says. And there's the food to prepare to visit Huali and the water to check on and the drainage ditches she needs to check up on, and—

"And you haven't talked to him in twelve days," Teiki says.

Twelve days? Has it been that long? It feels at once like a blink of an eye and a whole lifetime.

Moana swallows, and curses at the coil in her stomach and the tightness in her chest. "How is he?"

"Oh, no, no reports for you this time, my love," he says. "Sina's orders. You need to see him to find out."

He pauses. "Tell you what, though," he says, "let you know if you take me up on that proposal."

"Teiki."

He sighs. "Worth a shot."

Moana rolls her eyes.

"But Teiki," she says. "The village—"

"Your dad is part of the village, Moana," he says. "Maybe he should get a visit, too."

She stops.

She hates that he's right. She hates that the sun's been out long enough that her only enemy would be the mud. She hates that the number of pressing issues has grown to the point where so many things are urgent that nothing is urgent anymore. She hates the idea of going back to the lights of home and finding the entrance clear, and her father still in bed.

She hates that there's no reason for her not to go.

"It'll help him get better, you know," Teiki says. "Does you good to get visitors when you're sick."

She hates that he's probably right about that, too.

"I know your visits helped me," Teiki says.

And Moana smiles, despite everything. Whether she means it or whether this is the Warrior Face, even she's not sure anymore.

"Fine," she says. "But only because I can't take another proposal."

Teiki grins. "That's my girl."

* * *

She can do this.

She broke a goddess's curse. She cleared the eastern waters of its dangers. She planned and built a new village from scratch. She negotiated peaceful trade agreements between the islands. She faced off multiple rejected suitors as they hurled insult after insult at her for her rejections.

She can sit at her father's side for a few hours, and talk with him before the fever makes him go back to sleep.

It's not hard.

And anyway, she's been taking care of him all this time.

She _has_.

She _is_.

She can do this.

Moana trudges up the hill to find the lights of home, the entrance clear and the trees silent, the cold of the winds whipping up from up beyond the hills and down towards the sea.

And Dad, barely breathing, asleep again as Mom holds his hand and tells him to hold on. It's just a little longer. He can make it through this. They've been through worse. They'll go through worse. She's not going to let a little fever take him.

"Just hold on," she begs, smoothing back his hair as he sleeps, and Auntie Tafi draws Mom into a hug.

Moana fights back a tightness in her throat and the sudden urge to scream. There needs to be something to blame. There needs to be something to fight. The rains, the fever, Dad's insufferable, reckless need to be out in picking flowers at dawn. There needs to be something she can actually do to help, to fix this. Now.

She didn't cross the sea, she didn't clear it of monsters, to watch her father taken down by the rains.

She can't watch him the same way she watched the fever nearly take Teiki.

And for once, the thing that comes unbidden to her isn't despair, or a painful memory.

The thing that comes to her is an idea. One that, now that she thinks about it, should've been obvious from the start.

Her jaw sets.

There is no way she is going to just watch.

She's not going to lose anyone here.

She is Moana of Fa'anui, and she once saved the world. And if she can save the world, she can save one person.

She turns, and heads out towards the forest.

* * *

Maui never really did cover how to summon a god.

Be summoned by a god, sure, he taught her the basic protocols and gave tips for dealing with a few of the individual gods, but gods went where they pleased, and barring easy to find deities like Te Fiti, your chances of finding any particular god tended not to be that great.

"Besides," he'd once said, "if they wanna talk to you, they'll talk to you."

He'd grimaced then, probably at some distant memory. Or a recent memory, the way he'd been talking about his missions lately. "Trust me, the less you have to deal with them, the better," he said. "Once they decide they like you that's it, that's all your free time gone."

She'd rolled her eyes and elbowed him, making some smart remark about how only Maui could live for thousands of years and still complain about not having enough time.

Though now that she thinks about it, maybe it was never himself he wanted more time for.

She gets that instinct now. She wonders if he felt this way about all the mortals in his life.

As far as she knows, the tallest tree on the island is deep into the forest to the east of the chief's compound. She and Maui had found it one day as they scouted the further outskirts of the village, looking for anything of use or any danger zones her people would need to be warned of. It takes longer than it would without the help of Maui's giant hawk form, but Moana gets there in a respectable amount of time, the light still dappling through the leaves as she climbs over a rotting log and into the clearing where the tree stands proud.

It's beautiful, even more so in the symphony of the light of the sun just about to set behind her. Strong and tall, and wide enough to maybe carve an entire head voyaging canoe out of alone, this was not a tree she could see felled by the rain or eaten by coconut worms any time soon. Maui may have pulled this island from the sea but Moana wouldn't be surprised if Tāne-matua himself planted this here as a reminder of his presence.

It's a good, long moment to soak in its majesty before she has to remind herself why she's here.

Moana pulls out a pigeon from a basket—still alive, for what it's worth, just weak and sluggish—and kneels to place it at the base of the tree, muttering a short prayer of offering as she does so, a prayer that slowly grows longer and less dignified as the sun continues along its path behind her.

"It's not much," she says. "It's not immortality. It's not the breath of life. I just—"

Moana swallows, and strokes the poor pigeon's head in apology.

"—I'm just asking you to spare him just this once, just from this," she says. "Please, Tāne-matua. It's not his time yet."

And the sob that had been building up in her since the night he fell ill finally comes out, knocking the Warrior Face right off her before she can realise what's going on. She embraces the coil inside her and the ache in her chest, letting herself bend forward to lean her forehead against its bark, and the only thing she can think of to anchor her right now is Maui, beside her, keeping her together the same way Auntie Tafi seems to be the only one who can keep Mom together in times like these.

Moana wipes away a few of the tears, tries to pull herself together, even as the thing she'd been trying to avoid thinking about begins to take root.

He's going to die. Dad is going to die.

And there might not be anything she can do about it.

"Please."

The pigeon stirs beneath her, a last gasp of breath before it's gone.

Moana's eyes widen at the sight of the dead bird. Did it work? Did he accept the offering?

She looks up and around in search of the god's giant frame, the flutter of movement from the birds that constantly hover around him, and instead finds herself met with the sight of the sun growing dark and red as it makes its way towards the horizon.

It's a couple of blinks to get the glare out of her eyes, a quick turn back towards the tree to recover from the sight, and just as she starts to wonder if this worked at all, she hears a voice behind her.

"And what is it you seek, my child?"

But, deep and dark and soothing as this voice is, this is nothing like the one she can still remember from the forests of Motunui so many years ago. Instead of rumbling so low she could feel it in her bones, this one darkens the world, taking all the heat and light and humidity around her and mellowing it to an overcast day, or a cool afternoon, just as the sun is about to set.

Moana turns towards the sound of the voice behind her, to find a woman sitting on the dead log.

* * *

She's beautiful. Tall and gentle, with pale skin that speaks of a life without the sun and soft hands that speak of a life without the earth. Soft, dark hair that falls like a cascade of waves, tattoos that fill her lips and spill out in swirls and points down her chin in a delicate, deliberate little dance, and this bearing of knowing, and calm, that she knew all that you'd gone through, and she was ready to help you be at peace with it.

Her smile is soft, gently lit from behind by the sun beginning to set, and Moana doesn't know what it is about her but suddenly all is right with the world.

Moana kneels, and lowers her head.

The woman speaks.

"My presence doesn't disappoint you, I hope," she says, and her voice at once sharp and chilling and soft and warm. "You may rise, Chosen One. I think we may be past such formalities. Look if you want to. I don't mind."

Moana slowly gets up onto her feet, head still lowered, wracking her brain trying to think of all the goddesses this could be. She's in human form, with no animal companions to give away any animals she might be in charge of or any symbols of any particular trade or domain. In this form she looks like a normal human woman, albeit one with the definite air of a goddess.

It's when she takes another look at the face that Moana begins to put it together.

The goddess's eyes flash back at her, pupils dark and streaked with red, and there's a hint of a smile when she sees it dawn on Moana just who this might be.

"You wonder who I am," she says.

The sun is blazing and streaking the sky in reds and golds and purples as it continues tracing its path behind her, bathing her in the glow of the day's brilliant and spectacular end.

It's not even a blink of an eye when the human-looking woman disappears, the dark hair replaced with waves of seaweed, the pale skin replaced with the finest, smoothest obsidian, and the eyes, two polished stones of jasper glinting back at her.

She smirks. "Better?"

Moana lowers her head again. "Hine-nui-te-pō," she says. "Goddess of Death."

The laugh is soft, and gentler than she would've expected for a goddess even Maui tends to avoid.

"No need for you to announce me, dear," she says. "I know very well who I am."

She pats the blank space beside her, a more solid part of the log Moana could comfortably sit on. "Sit, Moana of Fa'anui," she says. "I am not here to welcome you to my realm. Not today."

Moana can feel her toes digging into the ground, weight shifting to the balls of her feet, just ready to run.

And finds herself instead taking a step towards the log.

It doesn't chill her to sit next to the Goddess of Death, as she thought it would. Moana would've thought, death, sadness, families torn apart and lives ruined, and that the ruler of this domain would be just as cold and terrifying as the concept she personifies. She would've expected the freezing bite of the winds near the ocean, and a dread in her heart that would drown out her thoughts. She would've expected everything around her to grow black and die.

Instead she finds peace, and rest, this loss of control that … for some reason she can actually welcome.

The hands that grip along the sides of the log slowly loosen their grip, and Moana takes a moment to appreciate the soft moss cushioning her seat.

"If I recall correctly," Hine-nui-te-pō says, "when the gods asked if you would take a reward for your restoration of the Heart of Te Fiti, you said you would have none."

Moana swallows, and nods. "Yes."

"And now you would like to change that answer."

Her hands come to grip at her hibiscus skirts, still damp with the rain.

She swallows again.

"Yes."

The goddess takes a moment to consider, and the look Moana can feel on her isn't one of anger, or offence, but like a look into her soul, and an understanding of what exactly it is that she means.

Her hand comes to cradle Moana's face in hers. It's smooth, and comforting, and shouldn't be enough to bring Moana back to the brink of crying and yet here she is, feeling every stinging tear threatening to spill out of her and every little hitch in her breath threatening to send her back into sobs, as the Goddess of Death looks on, sad, and knowing.

The hand slowly comes away, but her gaze doesn't.

"You ask for your father's life," she says.

Moana swallows the sob that she barely keeps from escaping her mouth. "Yes."

"And for how long?"

It's like being woken from a dream.

Moana blinks herself out of her thoughts, takes a moment to find her bearings.

"I'm … I'm not sure I understand the question," Moana says.

She's met with an intense gaze, and the slightest tilt of the head.

She asks again, soothing, and dark, with the air of someone who can already predict what she's going to say. "How much more time would you like for him, Moana?" she says. "How many years?"

It's the running of the village all over again, but tenfold. How many years? Could she even be trusted with a decision like that?

Hine-nui-te-pō gives it another try.

"Or months," she says. "Days. How much longer would you like your father to live?"

She doesn't— She can't even begin to try to answer that question. Days?

But her head tilts further, and her gaze grows more intense. The pity becomes mixed with … she's not sure. Curiosity, maybe. Fascination. Something occurs to the goddess, lighting up her jasper eyes, and her eyebrows raise up for a second, so close to her seaweed hair.

"Or would you like to transfer your gift to him?" she says. "Would you like for him to become a demigod, and have him assume the position you could have taken six years ago?"

Dad, a demigod? Cursed to live like Maui and all those others, doomed to watch everyone around him die while he stays on, and on, and on, fighting every day to keep from forgetting them?

She doesn't feel the tear rolling down her face until it drips down onto her skirt, and by the time she's wiping it away it's only joined by more tears, her chest coiled so tight she can almost feel it threatening to burst.

"No," she says, "no, that's not what I'm asking."

The goddess takes another moment to consider.

"Then what are you asking for, Chosen One?"

And she's not sure.

Moana's hands grip her skirts, before they slowly let go.

"I guess," she says, "I'm asking you to spare him from this death. Let him die naturally some other time."

"And when would you like this natural death to be?"

How could she even ask—?

"I don't know," Moana says. "When it's his time."

"I see," Hine-nui-te-pō says. "And you are certain that this time is not his time?"

Yes.

No.

She's not sure.

Moana swallows. "Please," she says. "I can't lose him, not now."

"And why is that?"

Why is—? She's the Goddess of Death. Of all people she should know how death affects those left behind. She should know why people mourn, why they beg for the lives of their loved ones. Has no one ever asked her this sort of thing before?

Hine-nui-te-pō rises, and stands before her, bathed in the light of the setting sun, every inch the major goddess she is.

"Would it be better if his death came once you learned how to run the village?" she says. "Would you prefer to lose him after he finds you a husband, or after you give him the grandchildren he's always wanted?"

"I—" she says, "I don't know."

"When will you be able to lose him, Moana?"

"I don't _know_."

"Then why did you think this was something you could ask of us?"

The tears flow unbidden, and before she knows it she's choking back sobs, wiping uselessly at her face, which refuses to dry as more tears come in to fill the void, endlessly falling and falling and falling like the rains that had tormented her the past few weeks.

Hine-nui-te-pō's hand tilts Moana's head to look upwards, and towards her, and suddenly the heat inside of her is gone, replaced with the calm of a cool afternoon.

Her tears stop.

Something inside her uncoils, as it suddenly becomes clear.

"I … just wanted to help him," she says. "I just wanted to stop feeling like the only thing I could do was watch."

And the gaze is once again replaced by the warm smile, and the blazing scarlets and oranges around her almost seem to soften again, to the regal reds of royalty, and the soft yellows of the hibiscus by the beach.

Her hand comes away again, and she moves to sit back where she was before.

There's a faraway look at some distant memory, and the Goddess of Death smiles at something in private before turning her attention back to Moana.

"It is indeed one of the kindest ways I've been asked to spare a life," she says. "I wish my own father were worthy of such effort."

Moana nods. She knows the twisted story of Hine-nui-te-pō's father well enough.

"But," she says, "I have the feeling that none of this is what you truly want."

What?

Moana looks up.

"What I truly want?"

Hadn't she said it already? Didn't she come all the way her to beg Tāne-matua to spare her father's life? Wasn't that the entire reason she came here? What more could she have wanted?

Those jasper eyes continue to look over her, searching, sad. Moana is reminded of those long evenings spent talking with Maui, or her mother, when they sensed something was bothering her and forced her to talk.

She's not sure the last time she had one of those talks. It could've been a few weeks ago. It could've been a few months.

Hine-nui-te-pō's gaze softens, and there's another sad smile before those jasper eyes look out towards the tree.

"There are questions you would like to know the answers to," she says, "more than you would like to save your father's life. These are the questions that keep you from being at his side as we speak."

Moana follows her gaze to where she left the offering, the dead pigeon, stiff and cold and already beginning to be eaten by ants. Her stomach coils at the thought of it swelling up, and breaking down, rot by the rains and eaten by the forest until all that is left is its scattered bones.

"Ask me what you need to know, Moana," Hine-nui-te-pō says. "I will do my best."

Moana winces at the ants swarming thicker until she can barely make out the feathers, and she takes a breath.

"Will it hurt," she says, "when he dies? Did it hurt for my gramma?"

There's a search before something dawns on her.

"That's right, you did not actually see her pass," she says.

"No, I didn't."

Come to think of it, Moana hadn't actually seen anyone in her family die in front of her.

Or outside the family for that matter.

Mom's parents died just before she married Dad. Grampa died when Moana was a few months old. And Gramma … Well, Moana would've been there by her side if she had any choice in it.

Right?

Was it a mistake to not at least wait until after she passed? Would she be this affected by Teiki's near death, and her father's condition, if she were around to watch someone die whose death she had been prepared for for years? Would she be at his side now if six years ago Gramma had just told her to take the boat after, instead of right before her death?

Hine-nui-te-pō watches the ants the way anyone else would a sunset, or the stars beginning to rise.

"The pain before the crossing is beyond my control," she says. "I can predict it no better than you. What matters is that, for people like Tala, and Tui, the pain will end when life does."

"Will my dad be okay?"

"If I can save him from Whiro's hunger," she says, "yes. He will be cared for, as you all now care for him."

Moana swallows, as she thinks back to Pepeu the day his fever went down, and Mom the night Moana caught her crying. She thinks back to the village full of neverending work, and the duties piling up so high she had forgotten maybe half the things to do now. She thinks of the day she will have to put away Dad's pillow for the last time, and the necklace of whale's teeth, reverently placed around her neck as she finally loses the title of daughter of the chief.

It's going to happen. Sooner or later, whether she's there or not, whether she can do anything or not, whether she's prepared or not, Dad will die, and she will have to run the village on her own.

She asks the question.

"Will we be okay?"

And it seems to be the one Hine-nui-te-pō's been waiting for.

"At last," she says, and those jasper eyes turn back towards her. "Moana, how you will fare after any death is up to you."

She indicates a part of the log they sit on, her dark fingers pointing towards a part of the log that had sunken in. "Some people hold it inside, and let it rot them from within." And on to another part, where parasites had started from the outside in. "Some people strip off their dignity bit by bit, and leave themselves exposed."

And then she looks at Moana. "But you," she says, and takes a moment to consider her next words. "Tell me, would you say you continued with your life after Tala came into my care?"

"I guess," Moana says. "I guess I did."

"Then this is something you've had experience with."

Moana swallows. It's the part of the story Maui tends to skip over, the part where her parents brought her to the place they left Gramma's body, the part where she spent weeks getting used to Gramma's empty _fale_ , and the sight of the shore with no dancer.

"Yeah."

"Moana, death is something that needs to exist," Hine-nui-te-pō says. "Without it, we would not have this log to sit on. These trees and fields would have nothing to fertilise them. Your people would have no need to go out and _live_ their lives. And your grandmother would still be in pain."

Gramma was in pain, by the end, wasn't she. She'd grown slower the year she died, more prone to wheezing and joint pain. And by the end …

"Why did you reject a divine life, Chosen One," Hine-nui-te-pō says, "without sickness, without death?"

Moana shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "Because it didn't feel right for me."

"And now, now that you know how this life has affected your Maui?" she says. "Is that a decision you've come to regret?"

She thinks of the families he outlived, the families he forgot. Names, and a detail or two, and not much else beyond that.

"No."

"Then it does no use to fight what is meant to be," Hine-nui-te-pō says. "Death will happen to all of your kind, my child." She lays a hand gently on Moana's shoulder, and in her voice is the story of countless deaths she had seen, and countless deaths she will see in the future. "It is the rest after a life well lived. Sometimes it is better to accept that all you can do is to help ease the way."

"You're right," Moana says. "You're right. I should've been visiting. I should've kept him company. I was just … afraid, of watching him die."

Hine-nui-te-pō nods, as if she'd been waiting for her to say this.

Moana takes a shaky breath, just as the oranges deepen to red and the reds deepen to purple. "I'd like to ask something now."

"And what is that?"

"I'd like to ask it be made official," she says, "so I'm not tempted to use it again. The gods owe me nothing. I'm on my own."

The jasper eyes flash with the slightest hint of surprise. "You would have no reward?"

"Only the same one I asked for the first time the gods approached me," Moana says. "That I live with my people, as one of them, for the rest of my days."

The goddess takes in this petition, stands up, and beckons Moana to stand before her.

She never would've believed it if anyone ever told her that a _hongi_ with the Goddess of Death would feel like the breeze just as the stars come out, that it would take away the sting in her eyes and the coil in her stomach. She never would've believed it if anyone ever told her that she would come away from it breathing easier, and feeling lighter, and for the first time in weeks, thinking clearer than she ever had.

And yet, here she is, finally at some sort of peace.

Hine-nui-te-pō smiles, lit softly as she is by the light of the fading sun.

"Uncle Tangaroa chose well when he chose you," she says.

Moana breathes in the cool of the sunset breeze, and lets her eyes slip shut to just … feel this, this lack of fog.

She can handle this. She means it this time.

Someday he will be gone. Someday either he or Mom will go to bed knowing the other one isn't going to be there beside them. Someday the entrance will be clear for the death of a chief and not out of politeness or a watchful caution. Someday Moana will lose her title, and gain his, and that someday might come sooner than she's ready.

But she'll step up. She'll carry his memory in her heart and she'll keep everyone else going.

For his sake.

She'll make him proud.

Life gets sad, Maui once said, but life goes on.

She opens her eyes to find the sun blazing red behind them, the sky painfully vivid as the day finally draws to a close.

"Hine-nui-te-pō?" she says.

"Yes, my child?"

Moana lets herself look out and away from the sunset, and towards the direction of the village.

"Is it his time yet?"

The Goddess of Death places a gentle hand on Moana's shoulder. "That, I cannot tell you."

"But when it will be," Moana says, "will you take care of him?"

Her voice is a warm fire on a cold night, a cool afternoon after a punishingly hot day, and Moana doesn't know what it is about her, but suddenly all is right with the world.

"As I take care of all of you," she says, and to Moana's surprise, brings her into a hug.

Moana stifles one last straggling sob, and hugs her back.

"Thank you."

* * *

Moana looks over him again, just to be sure.

It's an overcast morning, but just light enough to see without any need for a lamp. His breathing is steadier, she notices, steadier now than she'd observed since the fever went down. No splotches on his skin, no bleeding that she can notice, no sweating, no waking up to go vomit, none of the usual signs that this could all go downhill.

Moana bites back a smile as she finally lets herself believe, maybe he's actually getting better.

Beside her Teiki grins. "Told you a visit would do him good."

"Shouldn't you and the boys be cooking?" Moana says.

"Pfft," he says. "We gotta make sure he's even hungry enough to handle food yet, my love, there's a method to this."

"If by method you mean excuse to spend time with me."

"It can be both," he shrugs. "So the chief's finally coming around, is he?"

Another quick sweep of his clear skin, his limbs stretched out freely and without any more pain.

"I'm waiting on the healers to confirm," Moana says, "but it's … better. Better than yesterday, anyway."

"Good," he says. "Be a shame if our kids grew up without a grampa, eh."

"Teiki."

He shrugs again. "Just saying," he says, "you ever change your mind about royal marriage—"

Moana fights back a smile, shaking her head.

In front of her Dad stretches, giving out a little yawn against the mattress before he rights himself and rolls to face the ceiling instead of the floor.

He blinks up at Moana, his eyes still adjusting to the morning light.

"You're not Sina."

Moana's hugging him before she realises it, revelling in the sound of his voice. After about two weeks of leaving home before he wakes up and coming back after he's gone to sleep, finally, his voice.

She's a voyager. She's gone months without hearing it before.

Still. She'd begun to fear she'd never hear it again.

She hugs him tighter.

Dad yawns again. "Morning to you too."

And Moana giggles against him before she breaks away.

"Mom's out with Auntie Tafi," Moana says. "Thought I'd take over for a bit."

Teiki smiles from his end of the mat. "How's the appetite today, Chief?"

"Starving," Dad groans. "The fishermen back yet?"

Teiki grins again. Weakness and loss of appetite were other signs to look out for after the temperature finally fell. "I'll get the bonito ready."

"Good lad," Dad says, and blinks back the last few bits of bits of sleep as he watches him scamper off to the cooking _fale_.

He turns to Moana. "I don't suppose you'd consider him for—?"

"No, Dad," Moana says.

He huffs. "The things I do for grandchildren."

She stifles another giggle.

It shouldn't be this good to talk to him again.

Pua looks up from his position curled up at Dad's feet, and as if noticing he's awake, moves to curl up next to his stomach instead, to which Dad gives a long-suffering sigh and scratches him behind the ear. "Your pig's been doing this ever since I got sick."

Good. Good Pua. "He's trying to keep you warm, Dad," she says. "You'd need it in this weather."

"Don't see why." He looks out onto the cool of the grey morning, and smiles at the morning breeze. "I love the rainy season."

Of course. It's making them all sick, it's making it hard to work, it nearly killed him, but no. He insists on loving the worst time of the year.

"Can you sit up?" Moana says. "I got you something."

"An apology for your cheating while jasmine picking, I hope."

"Better," she grins. "Look to your left."

He groans and makes a whole show of rolling his head over to look where she's pointing, when he spots it, and begins to smile.

The closest post to him, covered in vines and red hibiscus, just bloomed this morning, still wet from last night's rain.

"Teiki and I spent the morning making it," Moana says. "You like it?"

He reaches his hand over to hold hers. "It's wonderful, petal," he says. "Thank you."

Moana squeezes back.

Thunder starts to roll in the distance, and the air grows heavy with a hot, invisible mist, and just before the sky darkens enough Moana notices the growing amounts of grey in her father's hair, the greater number of lines on his face. His smiles and worries have made their mark, and soon those joint pains will be more than just a temporary thing.

She needs to be even more serious about learning to run the village. She's not exactly ready, but … then again, who really is.

She wonders if this is how he felt, when it was clear Grampa wasn't coming back from the sea.

She's thinking of coconut worms, and mud, and drainage ditches and trade hall expansions and fever precaution measures, when he asks her what's wrong.

Moana shakes her head. "I was just wondering."

"About?"

"Dad," Moana says, "what was it like when you had to become chief?"

Dad blinks in silence for a second, and then squints at her. "Moana, am I dying."

"You're not dying, Dad."

"Moana, you need to tell me if I'm dying," he says. "Your mother can't be trusted. She's too optimistic and she's too good an actor."

She laughs, just as the rain begins to fall. "Dad. You're not dying."

Dad's squint only barely softens when the shower falls gently on their roof, and water begins to drip off the eaves and into the beginnings of puddles outside. Nearby she can hear the birds of the forest, louder now than they've been for days.

"Fine," he says. "I'll believe you. For now."

It shouldn't be this good to hear his jokes again.

"Why do you need to know about your grandfather?"

Moana shakes her head. "It's nothing," she says. "It can wait."

Dad squints at her again, suspicious, when he notices something in turn, and breaks into a knowing smirk. "Being chief is hard, huh?"

Moana's tired again just thinking about going back out there. Palolo season. Quarry maintenance. Council meeting coming up soon with a focus on the duties of the lesser chiefs. And she's sure she's missing out at least five more things. "Now I get why you're so grumpy all the time."

"You're supposed to be making me feel better."

"And here you are," she smirks back, "smiling."

He lets out a huff of amusement, lets his eyes slip shut for now. "Shouldn't you be checking on the village?"

Moana smooths back his hair. "They can wait," she says. She holds his hand in hers as she watches the rain drip off the edges of the roof. "Besides. It's raining."

Dad shifts again, all the better to see the hibiscus-covered post, and his beloved rain.

He squeezes back. "Thank you, petal."

And she smiles, revelling in the sound of his voice, the sight of his chest rising, and falling, and rising again. He's going to be fine. At least for now, he's going to be all right. And from now on, she is going to treasure every moment they can share together, while they can still have them.

"I love you, Papa."

They watch the raindrops fall off the edges of the roof, and fall into puddles at the entrance, the birds in the trees nearby, and Moana lets herself notice for the first time, just how green everything's become, just how many flowers have begun to bloom.

* * *

 **Notes:** Dancing Kid (called Teiki in this series) shows up in the film almost immediately when Moana comes back to to Motunui and he's on her voyaging canoe at the end of the film, so I headcanon that he becomes a dancer by profession but he's close to Moana's family so will take time off to help out if needed. There's a woman who appears near Sina a lot that I like to imagine as Tafi. You can see her in the scene where Heihei tries to sit on the earth oven and near Sina when they're presenting her ceremonial dress for the first time.

Palolo as it's eaten is not exactly a kind of worm so much as it is the segments of a certain type of reef-dwelling worm shed during its mating season. Apparently it's an acquired taste and its flavour is rather like caviar and seaweed. Hardcore people will just eat it raw as they catch it, but these days you can do things like have them on toast or fry them with eggs. The timing for getting a good catch is crucial. If there aren't that many on the morning they actually are expected then they might show up again shortly after the next full moon, but if there are good numbers on the first night then that's it, that's your only chance for the year.

I see some wonderfully creepy portrayals of Hine-nui-te-pō in fic and thought it'd be nice to try out something more like Te Rangi Hiroa's interpretation. From his 1929 book, _The Coming of the Maori_ : "Though referred to as the Goddess of Death for her rightful slaying of Maui, [Hine-nui-te-pō] was really a kindly deity who was friendly to the descendants of Tane when they passed through the portal of the Underworld."

This chapter was supposed to be about 4000-6000 words. Whoops.

Anyway, so the final chapter for this fic is Moana's Bad Call (not the actual chapter title). No promises this time about when it's coming out. Writing a thousand words a day sounds fun until you realise you're dredging up painful memories every day for months while constantly stressing out over word counts and research and real life responsibilities. I don't want to overextend myself again but I do intend to finish this, so from now on the series is going at my own pace. I hope you understand.


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